Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdra ...
that takes place in 1932, during the Depression. The play was originally produced on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
by the Group Theatre in 1935. It was also filmed for television broadcast in 1971.
Plot summary
The play takes place in an unnamed American city during the Depression, in 1932. The head of the family, Leo, and his wife Clara are middle-class and prosperous. However, over the course of the play Leo and his partner Sam lose their handbag business and the family must come to terms with this. The other characters in the play include a friend, Gus, and his daughter, Libby, a frivolous and self-centered young woman who is newly married to Leo's son Ben; a boarder, and an assortment of other characters.
Odets said of ''Paradise Lost'' that he'd hoped that after people see it, "they're going to be glad they're alive".
Production
Directed by
Harold Clurman
Harold Edgar Clurman (September 18, 1901 – September 9, 1980) was an American theatre director and drama critic. In 2003, he was named one of the most influential figures in U.S. theater by PBS.
, ''Paradise Lost'' premiered on Broadway at the
Longacre Theatre
The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theater at 220 West 48th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Opened in 1913, it was designed by Henry B. Herts and was named for Longacre Square, now known a ...
in a Group Theatre production. It opened on December 9, 1935, and closed in February 1936 after 73 performances.
Cast
*
Stella Adler
Stella Adler (February 10, 1901 – December 21, 1992) was an American actress and acting teacher. ''
Morris Carnovsky
Morris Carnovsky (September 5, 1897 – September 1, 1992) was an American stage and film actor. He was one of the founders of the Group Theatre (1931-1940) in New York City and had a thriving acting career both on Broadway and in films un ...
as Leo Gordon
*
Walter Coy
Walter Darwin Coy (January 31, 1909 – December 11, 1974) was an American stage, radio, film, and, principally, television actor, arguably most well known as John Wayne's character's brother in ''The Searchers'' (1956).
Early years
Originally ...
Roman Bohnen
Roman Aloys Bohnen (November 24, 1901 – February 24, 1949) was an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the films ''Of Mice and Men'' (1939), '' The Song of Bernadette'' (1943), and ''The Best Years of Our Lives'' (194 ...
Luther Adler
Luther Adler (born Lutha Adler; May 4, 1903 – December 8, 1984) was an American actor best known for his work in theatre, but who also worked in film and television. He also directed plays on Broadway.
Early life and career
Adler was born on ...
Glenn Jordan
Glenn Jordan (born April 5, 1936) is a retired American television director and producer.
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Jordan directed multiple episodes of ''Family'' and helmed numerous television movies, several based on real persons as divers ...
directed a television revival production of ''Paradise Lost'' that was first broadcast on American
Public Television
Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...
in two parts, on February 25 and March 4, 1971. The editor was Frank Herold and the play was recorded at Teletape Studios, NYC. Herold received a 1972 Emmy Award nomination for video editing.
*
Jo Van Fleet
Catherine Josephine Van Fleet (December 29, 1915"The Bi ...
as Clara Gordon
*
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach (; December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. From his 1945 Broadway debut to his last film appearance, Wallach's entertainment career spanned 65 years. Origina ...
as Leo Gordon
*
Sam Groom
Samuel J. Groom is an American actor noted for his work on television.
Groom was born in Columbus, Ohio.
Groom portrayed Tom Eldridge in the CBS drama ''Our Private World'' (1965),. Following the cancellation of that prime-time serial, he rep ...
as Ben Gordon
*
Bernadette Peters
Bernadette Peters ( ''née'' Lazzara; born February 28, 1948) is an American actress, singer, and children's book author. Over a career spanning more than six decades, she has starred in musical theatre, television and film, performed in solo co ...
as Libby Michaels
*
George Voskovec
Jiří Voskovec (), born Jiří Wachsmann and known in the United States as George Voskovec (June 19, 1905 – July 1, 1981) was a Czech actor, writer, dramatist, and director who became an American citizen in 1955. Throughout much of his career ...
Fred Gwynne
Frederick Hubbard Gwynne (July 10, 1926 – July 2, 1993) was an American actor, artist and author widely known for his roles in the 1960s television sitcoms ''Car 54, Where Are You?'' as Francis Muldoon and as Herman Munster in ''The Munsters'' ...
as Mr. Pike
*
Mike Kellin
Mike Kellin (born Myron Kellin, April 26, 1922 – August 26, 1983) was an American actor.
Early life
Kellin was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Sophia and Samuel Kellin, Russian-Jewish immigrants. His younger sister, Shirley Ann ...
as Sam Katz
*
Biff McGuire
William "Biff" McGuire (October 25, 1926 – March 9, 2021) was an American actor. Best known as Inspector Kramer in ''Nero Wolfe'' (1979).
Early years
McGuire attended Hamden High School and the University of Massachusetts, where he studied agr ...
as Phil Foley
''Paradise Lost'' was released on DVD in April 2002 by Kultur's DVD Broadway Theater Archive. According to Luther Adler in the presentation's intro, ''Paradise Lost'' was Clifford Odets' favorite and Harold Clurman considered it one of the six or seven really important contemporary American plays.
Critical response
Brooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson (November 28, 1894 – January 14, 1984) was an American theatre critic. He worked for '' The New York Times'' from 1922 to 1960. In his obituary, the ''Times'' called him "the theater's most influential reviewer of hi ...
reviewed the play in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' on December 10, 1935:
"Paradise Lost" is more an exercise in style than an organic drama. ... The style does not flow naturally out of the ... characters who inhabit the play. ... If the design of the play is apparently formless and aimless, that is Mr. Odets's conscious way of reflecting the stalemate lives of the society he is describing. It results in several bold and exhilarating scenes, several vigorous characters, a good deal of sinewy dialogue—and considerable incidental foolishness. ... "Paradise Lost"" is a very mixed package.
The reviewer for ''The New York Times'' wrote of the 1971 television film that the play was
an inordinately difficult work, especially on the home screen. ... Mr. Odets piled episode upon episode and remorselessly twirled his sociological revolving door with too many people. ... It is a totality of the vagaries of humanity under varying degrees of despair and hopelessness. ... The inarticulation of people to develop thoughts and philosophies may not make for the most exciting conventional theater but it can be a cameo of persons as they really are, a portrait of society at loose ends.