Robert Cardullo

Clifford Odets's "Awake and Sing!": Text and Context Robert Cardullo

"Clifford Odets's 'Awake and Sing!'" is a critical edition of this famous American play from 1935. In American history, 1935 was at once the bleakest of the Depression years and a turning point when New Deal emergency measures began to inch a sick economy toward recovery. In the annals of American drama, 1935 was the Year of Odets: a relatively unknown young actor who, in rapid succession, had four of his plays produced on Broadway. The Group Theater, an energetic collective in which Odets (1906-1963) had been a founding member, opened "Awake and Sing!" On February 19; a bill of long one-acts, "Waiting for Lefty" and "Till the Day I Die", on March 26; and "Paradise Lost" on December 9. By the end of 1935, Odets was hailed as a ?revolutionary oracle,? the ?darling of the proletariat,? and the ?prophet of the Left.? "Clifford Odets's 'Awake and Sing!'" includes an introduction to this playwright's dramatic oeuvre; a chronology of Odets's life and work; an historical and cultural timeline of the 1930s; the full text of "Awake and Sing!" preceded by a preface and followed by notes; production reviews as well as essays on the play and interviews with Odets; and a selected bibliography.