Entry from Journal
March 17, 1940
The bad reviews of Night Music [Odets’ latest play] threw me back on myself, but that was good, that is very good, that is as it should always be! But the self independent, resolute! Let there be light, an inner light, a personal light, a light which touches unconscious negative plates of the plays to come with exactly the correct intensity. Keep away from those sensitive negative plates all light from the outside, but all! Later there will always be time to respond to the outside beams.
The constant struggle between listening to what the critics have to say and trying to learn something and shutting them out. Artists need to protect THEMSELVES from some criticisms. If you have any seriousness about being an artist of any kind, then you must know that there are people out there (and many of them are critics) who have contempt for artists, and have contempt for you even ATTEMPTING. Ignore these charlatans. Shut them out. They do not deserve to be listened to. They are every cautious voice from your childhood who tried to squelch you, who tried to make you quiet down, who forced you to stop running because you might fall down and scratch your knee. These are the critics who would prefer that you PLAY IT SAFE.
But also – know in your heart when they are telling you something that you need to learn.
This applies to life in general, doesn’t it. Was he more broadly conflicted, between what others thought of him and what he thought of himself?
I think it does apply to life in general. It would be like believing all the terrible things that your worst enemy in high school said about you. If you took that shit to heart, you’d want to kill yourself!!
It took him a while to convince the powers-that-be at the Group Theatre that his plays were “worthy” of consideration. The leaders of the Group treated him very poorly and refused to see anything in his plays.
But the ACTORS – Elia Kazan, Morris Carnovsky, Luther Adler, John Garfield – the ACTORS were dying to put on the plays. But the leadership was hesitant, fussy.
He always felt dissed by them.
And again – he had a huge ego. He thought his plays would save America, bring about social change, etc. And to some degree they did.
He died a lonely alcoholic bitter man – he had ratted on his friends to the HUAC – just like Kazan did – but because Odets had made such a big deal about being a man of the people, a working class man, the “savior” – the “voice” of the people – he was never forgiven, and his writing suffered. It didn’t just suffer, actually – he was no longer able to write after the HUAC thing. His own idea of himself shattered.
He died very young – like most of those who were ruined by the HUAC did.
“His own idea of himself shattered.” You write pretty damn well yourself.