Dec 18, 2009

Awake and Sing! | Awake and Sing!

At a glance:

Author: Clifford Odets
First Published: 1935
Type of Plot: Social realism
Time of Work: The early 1930’s
Setting: East Bronx, New York
Principal Characters: Bessie Berger, Myron Berger, Ralph Berger, Hennie Berger, Jacob, Uncle Morty, Moe Axelrod, Sam Feinschreiber, Schlosser
Genres: Social realism
Subjects: Values
Locales: Bronx, NY

The Play

In Awake and Sing! three generations of the working-class Berger family are jammed into an East Bronx apartment not unlike that in which Clifford Odets grew up. The family revolves around Bessie, the forceful mother. The Bergers are respectable—Bessie sees to that, whatever the cost of respectability.

Odets reminds his audience early in the play that, to Bessie, respectability and proper outward appearances mean more than anything else. As her father Jacob, a retired barber and a Marxist, cuts the hair of his well-to-do son Morty, who is visiting,...

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Awake and Sing! | Awake and Sing!

At a glance:

The Play

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