REAL THEATER: Clifford Odets

From my defining essay for REAL ART:

Here at Real Art, I'm trying to illuminate what I believe are the concepts with which artists ought to concern themselves for the most part; at the very least, I'm trying to show what concerns me as an artist. I believe that art should serve humanity, not the bad guys. Anything else is, at best, meaningless, and, at worst, evil. In short, Real Art is an ongoing argument for what constitutes real art.

As you may or may not know, I've quit teaching high school theater and am now studying in the graduate acting program at LSU. It occurred to me a while back that much of what I learn in grad school may very well be suitable for my blog in some form or another: I had no idea that this would be paying off so quickly. Case in point, playwright Clifford Odets (who is, coincidentally, the model on whom the title character of the Coen Brothers film Barton Fink is based).

Before the semester even began, my acting class was assigned to read ten or eleven plays; two of them were by Odets. His name was familiar to me, but I didn't know anything about him, and had never read his work. His stuff has really blown me away.

Odets came to prominence working with the legendary Group Theater in New York City during the 1930s. Their membership included some of the most influential artists in the history of American theater: Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan. This company was literally the Beatles of the theater. While the most long lasting influence of the Group Theater is on American acting, the thing that fascinates me most about them is their left-wing politics. Indeed, Odets, throughout his entire career, but mostly during the first half, attempted to make visible the anguish of class struggle in "classless" America.

Of the three Odets plays I've read, class, as a theme, dominates. Waiting for Lefty is a series of vignettes illustrating the oppression of workers, wrapped in a framework of a union meeting--the play ends with a rousing chant, "STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE!!!" Golden Boy shows the rise and fall of a violinist turned boxer who seeks fame and material wealth, learns the hollowness of such goals, but dies for his sins. Rocket to the Moon reveals the anxiety and superficiality of middle class existence through the story of a dentist's extramarital romance.

This last play really grabbed me, one subplot in particular. A colleague of the lead character is losing business and can't make ends meet. His sense of powerlessness and failure threatens to tear him apart.

This is his big moment (a monologue on which I'm working for school):

COOPER: If only they invented hydrants in the streets which give out milk and honey! . . . we'd be happier people. (Turning to them with new belligerence.) Don't I try? Can anyone accuse me of indifference to my work? Why can't I make a living? I'm falling apart by inches.(Suddenly sobbing.) Where can I sail away? To where? I'm ashamed to live! An ostrich can hide his head. Diphtheria gets more respect than me! They coddle germs in laboratories; they feed the white mice twice a day. . . Why don't somebody coddle me? (Controlling himself now.) What did I do to my fellow man? Why am I punished like this? (Trembling again on the brink of sobs, but holding them back.) Where is the God they told me about? Why should an innocent boy and an old lady suffer? I ask you to tell me, what is the Congress doing? Where are they in the hour of the needs of the people? (Appealing to STARK personally.) Did you ever see such times? Where will it end if they can't use millions of Coopers? Why can't they fit me in, a man of my talents? The sick ones walk the streets, the doctors sit at home. Where, where is it? What is it? . . . what, what, what? . . . (COOPER trickles off into silence, CLEO and STARK can be only helplessly silent in the face of this emotional speech. After COOPER blows his nose and wipes his eyes, a little ashamed of his feeling, he says with a faint bitter smile, mocking himself.) Gaze on the Columbia University lunatic! The warrior of Ypres and Verdun! . . . (He moves his trembling hand across his brow.)

This is great stuff. A perfect example of what I think art should be. It saddens me to think that we're still dealing with these same issues decades later: most artists today are so intensely introspective, however, that such ideas are, by and large, off the radar screen. Chalk it up to the success of the military, industrial, and entertainment complex. It's a damned shame.

For all my excitement about Odets, however, there is a big stain on his career that must be addressed: Odets named names. That is, during the McCarthy era, many former members of the Group Theater were called before HUAC to testify about their earlier Communist affiliations (I did say they were left-wing). Odets, along with Elia Kazan, cooperated, which doomed the careers of some of their colleagues. Needless to say, I condemn his actions. My hero, Paul Robeson, along with numerous other actors, directors, and writers were destroyed simply because they adhered to an unpopular political point of view--this was a dark time in American history.

Three years ago, before 9/11, my condemnation of Odets would have been harsh. However, our own dark time, the frightened hush that settled over America in the weeks after the terrorist attacks, has softened my thinking. In late 2001, I was teaching in a very conservative community, and even though I knew that the direction in which Bush was steering our country was wrong, very wrong, I was afraid to speak out against it in my capacity as an educator--this was a moral failing on my part, but I was scared shitless of losing my job, which seemed like a very real possibility at the time. Ultimately, the freeze thawed, and I started talking to my classes about the Iraq invasion. But for a while there, I got a taste of what Odets must have felt.

When I think about him as he was called to testify, I imagine a very frightened man. I imagine a man who stood to have his entire life's work erased, his reputation disgraced, his livelihood taken. I can only hope that were I in his position that I would do the right thing, but I would be an awful person, indeed, if I could not forgive him for what he did. Patriotic pressure is a horrible thing. It is ironic that Odets ended up like one of his characters, broken and warped by the cold and uncaring capitalist state.

But screw Kazan; he thought he did the right thing until he died in the late 90s. Odets, who died in the 60s, never had the decades of hindsight afforded to his former colleague.

For further, but brief, reading on Odets, click here and here.

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