Clifford Odets

Clifford Odets
Author: Margaret Brenman-Gibson
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Total Pages: 788
Release: 2002
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781557834577

(Applause Books). Clifford Odets through his plays, which include "Waiting for Lefty" and "Awake" and "Sing!", was the champion of the oppressed, avenger for the poor. He and his plays, as presented by the influential Group Theatre, were the conscience of America during the Depression. Author Margaret Brenman-Gibson, a respected psychoanalyst and close personal friend, penned what is considered the classic biography of Odets. Based on exhaustive research, including access to his personal papers, plus her own insights into the man and his career, it is at last back in prtin. The book is richly annotated, with a thorough bibliography, personal chronology, a list of Odets' works, published and unpublished, and a section of rare photographs.

Clifford Odets, Playwright-poet

Clifford Odets, Playwright-poet
Author: Harold Cantor
Publisher: Globe Pequot Publishing Group Incorporated/Bloomsbury
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2000
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

This study takes a different approach to the work of poet-playwright Clifford Odets. Rather than focusing on biographical and political factors surrounding his works, Cantor provides a close reading of 11 of Odets' plays as a whole, grounding his study within an analysis of themes common to each text. While granting emphasis to Odets' poetic style, Cantor gives due notice to Odets' achievements as both mythmaker and voice of the Jewish middle class. Included are reprints of 'Sum and Substance, ' an interview with the writer conducted by the late Herman Harvey, and a 1998 interview by Cantor with actress/director Joanne Woodward, who has directed recent revivals of four of Odets' plays. Cantor also gives an account of other noted productions in order to illuminate the ways in which this visionary's style has influenced contemporary American theatre. Drawing both from previous works and his own research, Cantor presents a quintessential study of a prolific and influential literary artist. It will prove a useful and timely volume for scholars of theatre and American social history alike.

The Big Knife

The Big Knife
Author: Clifford Odets
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
Total Pages: 84
Release: 1976
Genre: American drama
ISBN: 9780822201151

THE STORY: We witness the last few days of Charlie Castle, a top movie star and an idealist, whose years of compromise with his beliefs for the sake of a Hollywood career have resulted in the slow destruction of his personality. We see his struggle

Golden Boy

Golden Boy
Author: Clifford Odets
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
Total Pages: 92
Release: 1964
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780822204565

THE STORY: The Acting Edition contains notes showing how nearly all scene changes may be made with a minimum of effort. People are inclined to laugh at Joe, a moody young Italian with cockeyed notions. At heart a musician--he has a real talent for

Waiting for Lefty

Waiting for Lefty
Author: Clifford Odets
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
Total Pages: 36
Release: 1962
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780822212157

THE STORY: The action of the play is comprised of a series of varied, imaginatively conceived episodes, which blend into a powerful and stirring mosaic. The opening scene is a hiring hall where a union leader (obviously in the pay of the bosses) is trying to convince a committee of workers (who are waiting for their leader, Lefty, to arrive) not to strike. This is followed by a moving confrontation between a discouraged taxi driver, who cannot earn enough to live on, and his angry wife, who wants him to show some backbone and stand up to his employer; a revealing scene between a scheming boss and the young worker who refuses to spy on his fellow employees; a sad/funny episode centering on a young cabbie and his would-be bride, who lack the wherewithal to get married; a disturbing scene involving a senior doctor and the underpaid young intern (a labor activist) whom the doctor has been ordered to discharge; and, finally, a return to the union hall where the workers, learning that Lefty has been gunned down by the powers-that-be, resolve at last to stand up for their rights and to strike-and to stay off their jobs until their grievances are finally heard and acted upon by those who have so cynically exploited and misused them.

The Country Girl

The Country Girl
Author: Clifford Odets
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
Total Pages: 84
Release: 1951
Genre: Actors
ISBN: 9780822202431

THE STORY: The title character is Georgie Elgin, a faithful, forgiving woman, whose long years of devotion to her actor husband, Frank, have almost obliterated her own personality. The life of an actor's wife is not as glamorous as many imagine. So

The Flowering Peach

The Flowering Peach
Author: Clifford Odets
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
Total Pages: 96
Release: 1954
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780822204114

THE STORY: As described by Atkinson is: the story of mankind living out its destiny under the benevolent eye of God. There were giants on the earth in those days of the Deluge. In spirit Noah was the greatest. It is Mr. Odets' mood not to put him

Clifford Odets and American Political Theatre

Clifford Odets and American Political Theatre
Author: Christopher J. Herr
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2003-10-30
Genre: Drama
ISBN:

This new consideration of Odets and his body of work reads his career - the work and the conditions of its invention - as cultural productions created during a time of political, social, and economic change.

Out of the Shadows

Out of the Shadows
Author: Walt Odets
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0374719322

A moving exploration of how gay men construct their identities, fight to be themselves, and live authentically It goes without saying that even today, it’s not easy to be gay in America. While young gay men often come out more readily, even those from the most progressive of backgrounds still struggle with the legacy of early-life stigma and a deficit of self-acceptance, which can fuel doubt, regret, and, at worst, self-loathing. And this is to say nothing of the ongoing trauma wrought by AIDS, which is all too often relegated to history. Drawing on his work as a clinical psychologist during and in the aftermath of the epidemic, Walt Odets reflects on what it means to survive and figure out a way to live in a new, uncompromising future, both for the men who endured the upheaval of those years and for the younger men who have come of age since then, at a time when an HIV epidemic is still ravaging the gay community, especially among the most marginalized. Through moving stories—of friends and patients, and his own—Odets considers how experiences early in life launch men on trajectories aimed at futures that are not authentically theirs. He writes to help reconstruct how we think about gay life by considering everything from the misleading idea of “the homosexual,” to the diversity and richness of gay relationships, to the historical role of stigma and shame and the significance of youth and of aging. Crawling out from under the trauma of destructive early-life experience and the two epidemics, and into a century of shifting social values, provides an opportunity to explore possibilities rather than live with limitations imposed by others. Though it is drawn from decades of private practice, activism, and life in the gay community, Odets’s work achieves remarkable universality. At its core, Out of the Shadows is driven by his belief that it is time that we act based on who we are and not who others are or who they would want us to be. We—particularly the young—must construct our own paths through life. Out of the Shadows is a necessary, impassioned argument for how and why we must all take hold of our futures.