Six Plays of Clifford Odets

by Clifford Odets

Book Overview

Deep in the bowels of Junk Moon, the finest scientists of Planet Immortal are nearing completion of a project that will unlock the secret of immortality. Project Amphora is run by the Consortium,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802150608
• ISBN13: 9780802150608
• Release Date: December 1988
• Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.3" x 7.1"

Customer Reviews

Kotzwinkle Does It Again

I've now read three William Kotzwinkle books (not counting "Walter the Farting Dog"). In each book I've read -- and "The Amphora Project" is one of them -- he creates a fantastic world out of whole cloth, and populates it with fantastic characters who behave only as Kotzwinkle characters can. In this case, it's "The Corridor..." a place somewhere in space, somewhere in the future, where refugees from doomed Planet Earth have re-established themselves, interacting with populations (and robots) from all over the known universe. We meet Jockey Oldcastle, a space pirate... an elephantine used-weapons dealer... Kitty Liftoff, who runs the Junk Moon.... all overseen by the Consortium and the Autonomous Observer. I won't get any farther into the plot than that. Only Kotzwinkle can tell the story, so I won't even try, other than to say that the quest for immortality is involved. "The Amphora Project" grabbed me and involved me immediately and didn't let go. I highly recommend it. While I'm at it, let me also urge you to enjoy "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" and "The Fan Man," my other two Kotzwinkle tales.

I am off to read more of this guy's work he rocks!

Oh gosh I LIKED this book.. and I was going to write a review without reading the others but sneaked a peek anyway.. so now for SURE I am gonna' write this review! First, I haven't read any other Kotzwinkle (that sounded.. strange.. but YOU know what I mean), but after THIS book I AM because I liked this book! I agree that there are COOL characters in this book including the Observer: a cool objective analytical even ruthless strong female lead who sneaks up on you in the book. Her Mysterious Origin adds to her allure! But the OTHer characters are cool too, especially Lizardo and Oldcastle.. hm.. this will either put you off or intrigue you more.. but those two remind me of an intelligent "A Team" set in a future earth galaxy empire combat instead of a wwII african desert combat.. but the same "competent though irreverent" feel is there. ANYway the backround about ancient aliens and their immortality scam was just that to me.. a fun backdrop for the main and secondary characters to play against.. especially cool to me were the individual motivations of The Combine who invested in the Amphora (Immortality) Project totally taken in by the scam but unable to see it because of their hopes and fears.. ow! that hit close to home to me (wince) but felt all too authentic! But Hey the story ends happily, humanity remains saved and SOME of the characters hook up and learn lessons, and OTHers don't (of course!) and I am off to read more of this guy's work, he rocks!

I'm no sensitive plant-what's the answer?

"...So in the end nothing is real. Nothing is left but our memory of life. Not as it is...as it might have been...." So says Leo, soft natured, burnt out, over worked, unappreciated, hang dog Odetian father in Paradise Lost. But such sentiment could come from any of these six plays and not be out of place. In these six plays, featuring some of the most brilliant and emotional American playwriting ever, Clifford Odets hammered and chiseled circumstances of urban American life in the 1930's. Full of hard edged people who demand it of others, and naive people who refuse to be brought down by the prevailing winds, Odets creates a world that may seem dated and bygone. But the turmoil and the choices are neither. In Waiting for Lefty taxi cab drivers must contend with horrendous working conditions, including violence and intimidation from managment if they strike. Scenes from worker meetings, home life between a husband and wife on the edge, and between two scientists politicing towards blacklisting and espionage. In Awake and Sing and Paradise Lost families living in small cramped apartments must strive for peace and simple comforts while income is barely enough, their children, desperate for a better life, risk their lives through crime, or take up with sordid, cynical and compromised people. Homes are taken away, suicides and paralysis grip them. In Till the Day I Die, two brothers go from being tight excited comrades, rebelling against the Fascist Nazi encrouchment, to being torn apart and suspicious after one of them is captured, tortured, abused, compromised and released. In Golden Boy, the sweet heart of a promising violinist turns grey and aggressive when he takes up boxing, letting success, hatred for his family and fear of failure lead him to his own destruction. In Rocket to the Moon a dentist falls for his young secretary, who dreams of a better life, beyond a hard scrabble existence as three men vie for her affections. All the writing is incredible. A few noteworthy quotes: From Till the Day I Die: Ernst: Yes, peace! in the cell there-I know I stayed alive because I knew my comrades were with me in the same pain and chaos. Yes, I know that till the day I die there is no peace for an honest worker in the whole world. Tilly: Till the day I die there is steady work to do. Let us hope we will both live to see strange and wonderful things. Perhaps we will die before them. Our children will see it then. Ours! Ernst: These guns are complicated pieces of machinery. Our Germans make them like works of art. Tilly, Carl, our agony is real. But we live in the joy of a great coming people! The animal kingdom is past. Day must follow the night. Now we are ready: we have been selected in a terrible fight, but soon all the desolate places of the world must flourish with human genius. Brothers will live in the societs of the world! yes, a world of security and freedom is waiting for all mankind! Do your work, comrades. From Paradise Lost: Kewpie: A

AWAKE AND SING

After joining the American Communist Party in 1934, Odets used a taxi drivers' strike from that year as the inspiration for his first play, Waiting for Lefty . The play is an agit-prop that borrows heavily from Communist ideology and promotes collective action and unionization as the only means to tip the scales of power away from big business and toward the worker. The characters in the play grow aware of themselves as the oppressed class as opposed to the powerful ruling class, and when this "class consciousness" becomes too burdensome, they see no other option but to strike. This dialectic play gives the audience an insight into the ills of American society and encourages them to change their reality. It was written and performed at a time when the legend of the self-made man held no more waters. The country was still struggling with the aftershocks of the stock market crash of 1929. Unemployment rate reached its highest peak in the United States and employers were reducing wages drastically. As depicted in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio: From the Thirties (written in the 1930s, published in 1974), workers were treated brutally by their employers. As Steinbeck showed, workers had to bond together and fight for their meagre wages which dropped even more because of the intense competition. In this fight, unionization and strikes were their only weapons.

A fine representation of seminal American Drama

There are many aspects of Odets' work that have not particularly aged well. Frankly because he consciously was writing to reflect contemporary (for the 1930's) American Society with an extreme and blatant Leftist leaning, much of his dialouge, characterization and politicising has dated. Yet these selections still contain powerful dramatic representations of life that illuminate a segment of society that literally was ignored by the media of the time.It is arguable, but I think it's true that without Odets' dramatization of the plight of the common man, we wouldn't have witnessed the (admittidly more poetic and timeless) works of Miller, Inge and Williams. Odets, perhaps more than any other playwright of his time, placed "the little guy" in the center of the tragic form. As one reads these plays, one becomes aware that the rules are beginning to break right before the reader's eyes.Odets' plays are, if one is able to check their political hat at the door, fine works of dramtic lit that prove most actable while also allowing a range of staging possibilities. His narratives are clean and direct in the sense that they give the characters a series of clear objectives and actions as well as conflicts to confront. This collection is a most welcome and necessary addition to any theatre library.