Waiting for Lefty | A More Perfect Union
Simon reviews a revival of Waiting for Lefty directed by actress Joanne Woodward. The critic gives an enthusiastic appraisal of the production and explains why dramas such as Odets' merit periodic rekindling. He calls Waiting for Lefty the ''strongest agit-prop play written in America.''
There are plays whose historic interest justifies their periodic revival, especially if that interest covers both political and theatrical history. Such is the case of Clifford Odets' Waiting for Lefty (1935), the strongest agit-prop play written in America. "An essentially lusty outcry, informed with the enthusiasm of a cheering grandstand," as Harold Clurman called it, the work was inspired by an unsuccessful strike of New York's taxi drivers. Though a product of Odets' Communist period, it is happily free from doctrinaire Marxism.
As revived by the Blue Light Theater...
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