The structure of Odets' plays has been misinterpreted. To some extent the playwright himself is responsible for this critical confusion. "I was influenced a little by Chekhov," Odets told Mendelsohn in 1963. "Not by Ibsen, because you see my forms are not Ibsen's. But my chief influence as a playwright was the Group Theater acting company…." Invariably, critics and scholars of the drama refer to Odets' plays as Chekhovian in structure. The truth of the matter, however, is that the basic structure of an Odets play is Ibsenite; that is, one can perceive in it a single rising line of action which can be analyzed in terms of a point of attack, a turning point, and a resolution composed of a crisis, climax and conclusion. Chekhov's plays do not have this single action structure…. It was Odets' achievement to integrate a basic Ibsenite action with certain structural techniques of a Chekhov play, and thus assure his work a rising line of tension while simultaneously enriching the piece by counterpoint and the indirect expression of emotion and feeling. In short, Odets avoided, on the one hand, reducing the Ibsenite structure to a bald, straight-forward thesis play, and, on the other, fashioning a static genre study in the alleged Russian manner. It is necessary to add, however, that Odets' recourse to Chekhovian devices is much more apparent in Awake and Sing! than in his other plays. Finally, Odets has sometimes been dubbed a "scenewright" by critics; but as I hope to show throughout this study the structure of an Odets play is generally much more unified than some critics have allowed. In short, Odets is very much a "playwright." (pp. 33-4)

[Awake and Sing!] is far more unified than critics generally allow. John Howard Lawson was one of the first critics to attack the structure of Odets's play. According to the author of Theory and Technique of Playwriting the turning point in the piece looks back to the scene in Act One in which Jacob entertains Moe by playing Caruso records …; but, says Lawson, Jacob's death "has no organic connection with the play as a whole." Lawson misses the point of attack—his analytical approach fails to include such a point—and hence he does not account for the total action of the play. Furthermore, contrary to what Lawson maintains, Ralph does show signs of development as a result of Jacob's death: he is able to choose social idealism in favor of Blanche—something he was not able, or willing, to do before—and, moreover, this change is dramatized when Ralph breaks with his girl, when he reads Jacob's books, and when he asserts himself with Bessie. True, Ralph will remain at home, but his situation will not be the same as it had been with the family. Finally, Ralph's motivation is clear because the basic dramatic conflict was focused at the point of attack and logically developed throughout the action of the play.

Nevertheless, there is a structural defect in Awake and Sing!. Lawson says that Jacob's death does not make Hennie's flight with Moe "inevitable." One should add that the grandfather's death does not make Ralph's choice of revolution "inevitable" either. Nor should Jacob's death make either choice "inevitable": for that way lies contrivance and determinism. What the turning point in the action makes "inevitable" is a decision of some kind: either girl or revolution—either self or society. Jacob's death, however, does not influence Hennie's escape in the same terms, for Hennie has not been involved in the main structure of the play. Yet one might be willing to accept Hennie's action if Odets presented it as a credible response to the situation enacted in the play…. Ralph, who is supposed to be socially "mature" now, announces the dawn of a new world—but how will Hennie's irresponsible behavior usher in that new world? What of her child? Is leaving the child in the keeping of Bessie a wise thing to do? What of Sam? Won't he become another Schlosser? People may act like Hennie in our society, but why the idealistic Marxist Ralph should applaud such action remains a mystery. One might argue that Ralph's new love of action—"DO!"—has gotten the better of him; this would be credible. It would not square entirely, however, with Odets' evident approval of Ralph standing "full and strong in the doorway" as the curtain falls…. One is forced to conclude that Odets remained somewhat confused about the significance of his play's ending. There is also a suggestion of an agitprop conversion in the last act which runs counter to the more realistic elements in the piece. Furthermore, Awake and Sing!, like some other plays and novels of the period, poses an "either-or" dramatic question. But why must it be either Blanche or the revolution? Wasn't Marx married? Wasn't Lenin? Apparently Odets anticipated such objections, and consequently endeavored to downgrade Blanche by emphasizing her cowardice and lack of sympathy. It is a weakness in the play, however, that the audience is never permitted to see Blanche. After all, she is the counterweight to Jacob's dream and as such she should be palpably on view to sharpen the dramatic conflict. Had she been on stage, though, the logical weakness in Odets's "either-or" construction would have been more clearly manifest. This is not to say, of course, that all "either-or" situations in drama are to be censured. After all, life itself occasionally poses "either-or" questions. It is to say, though, that in Awake and Sing! the dramatic question seems unrealistic.

The crude Marxist thrust of Awake and Sing! makes embarrassing reading today…. It is only the warmth of Odets' compassion and characterization that saves his first important play from the oblivion deserved by other less genuinely conceived works. "Waiting for Lefty had a functional value," Odets was quoted as saying in the New York World-Telegram on March 19, 1935. "This is sometimes called the propaganda angle in writing. But the important thing about Awake and Sing! is the fact that the play stems first from real character, life and social background of these people."… The years have not diminished the power and realism of A wake and Sing!, qualities which endure in spite of Odets' "ideology." Not even the romanticism that at the end degenerates into a mindless irresponsibility as the lovers escape causes any great harm to the piece. It would be a mistake, then, to put Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing! in the same category. As Charles Kaplan recently pointed out, Awake and Sing! "is less a play dealing with the class struggle than one embodying the vague dissatisfactions of the lower middle class at the thwarting of normal human desires." Indeed, few works in American drama reveal so well what happens to a family when natural relations are perverted.

Bessie Berger has usurped control in the household …, and as a result all the male characters are warped, impotent and crippled in some way. (pp. 40-3)

The characters in Awake and Sing! are extremely frustrated in their social relations, their normal development is blocked, and as a consequence they seem to regress to primitive, or infantile, modes of desire and expression. It is striking how often Odets' characters reveal what the psychoanalyst calls an "oral orientation." "Every other day to sit around," says Ralph, "with the blues and mud in your mouth."… "In a minute I'll get up from the table," Bessie declares. "I can't take a bite in my mouth no more."… Clearly, then, Marxist and Freudian motivation, which for some critics are like oil and water, appear to mix here, making Awake and Sing! one of the most complex plays in the American drama.

As a result of their pervasive frustration on both the personal and the social level, the characters in Awake and Sing! evince strong aggressive drives and a preoccupation with death. It is still another mark of Odets' skill as a playwright that he is able to fuse the death imagery of his language with the resurrection motif in the play. Analysis of dialogue reveals an astonishing number of references to violent action and death. (pp. 45-6)

[The] resurrection motif, the references to Ralph as "boy-chick," Hennie's name, and lines like the following: "Mom can mind the kid. She'll go on forever, Mom," says Moe. "We'll send money back, and Easter eggs" …—all are part of a thematic pattern of imagery. A study of the language in Awake and Sing!, then, reveals a high degree of verbal unity in the play.

Note, furthermore, how subtly Odets integrates structure, imagery and theme in his characterization of Moe. The following exchange takes place in Act One:

MOE. Didn't I go fight in France for democracy? Didn't I get my goddam leg shot off in that war the day before the armistice? Uncle Sam give me the Order of the Purple Heart, didn't he? What'd you mean, a no-good?

JACOB. Excuse me.

MOE. If you got an orange I'll eat an orange.

JACOB. No orange. An apple.

MOE. No oranges, huh?—what a dump!

                                                     (p. 48)

Here Odets' "Chekhovian" technique is brilliantly rendered. As Stark Young once said: "[Odets'] theater gift most appears … in the dialogue's avoidance of the explicit…. To write in terms of what is not said, of combinations elusive and in detail, perhaps, insignificant, of a hidden stream of sequences, and a resulting air of spontaneity and true pressure—that is quite another matter." The orality that I discussed earlier is also evident in [this same scene in Act One], which indicates that Moe's oblique expression of emotion is part of a thematic pattern. Furthermore, the structure of the scene anticipates the end of Act One and the turning point of the play.

Later in the scene just discussed, Odets orchestrates his themes:

MOE. Ever see oranges grow? I know a certain place—One summer I laid under a tree and let them fall right in my mouth.

JACOB. (off, the music is playing; the card game begins). From "L'Africana" … a big explorer comes on a new land—"O Paradiso." From act four this piece. Caruso stands on the ship and looks on a Utopia. You hear? "Oh paradise on earth! Oh blue sky, oh fragrant air—"

MOE. Ask him does he see any oranges?

                                                     (p. 49)

The counterpoint here is more than merely humorous, for Odets juxtaposes Jacob's Marxist "Utopia" with Moe's version of "Paradise."… Whereas Jacob opts for the Marxist gospel, Moe seeks a romantic apotheosis. When Hennie remarks: "Oh God, I don't know where I stand," Moe tells her: "Don't look up there. Paradise, you're on a big boat headed south…. The whole world's green grass and when you cry it's because you're happy."… It is interesting to observe that Moe identifies Hennie with "oranges": "Gone big time, Paradise? Christ, it's suicide! Sure, kids you'll have, gold teeth, get fat, big in the tangerines."… Hence, "oranges" equal "tangerines" equal "breasts." If one recalls that Moe has said: "One summer I laid under a tree and let [oranges] fall in my mouth" …, one can see that this imagery in Awake and Sing! runs counter to the basic structure of social awakening, for Moe and Hennie, like Myron and Morty, are attempting to solve adult problems in an oral, or infantile, manner. This fact would seem to undercut Odets' confidence in Hennie's attempt to make a new life and appears to be further proof of a certain amount of confusion in the playwright's conception of his material. A search for womb-like security and oral passivity seems plain when Moe informs Hennie: "Come away. A certain place where it's moonlight and roses. We'll lay down, count stars. Hear the big ocean making noise. You lay under the trees. Champagne flows like—"…. Which contrasts sharply with the image of Ralph at the end of the play: "Spit on your hands and get to work," he says, and Moe remarks of Ralph: "The kid's a fighter!"…. The tensions within Awake and Sing! no doubt spring from polarities in Odets himself.

Finally, I should like to point out how pervasive verbal echoes are in the play and how they knit together its various motifs. Perhaps some of the imagery already discussed was not consciously contrived by Odets, but it seems likely that the greater part of his language, with its various levels of significance, was deliberately wrought. Take, for example, the conclusion of the opening act:

MYRON. I remember that song … beautiful. Nora Bayes sang it at the old Proctor's Twenty-third Street—"When It's Apple Blossom Time in Normandy."

MOE. [Hennie] wantsa see me crawl—my head on a plate she wants! A snowball in hell's got a better chance. (Out of sheer fury he spins the quarter in his fingers.)

MYRON (as his eyes slowly fill with tears). Beautiful …

MOE. Match you for a quarter. Match you for any goddam thing you got. (Spins the coin viciously.) What the hell kind of house is this it ain't got an orange!!

                                              (pp. 49-50)

Myron's reference to the song, "When It's Apple Blossom Time in Normandy" looks back to Hennie's line, "Wake me up when it's apple blossom time in Normandy" …, and, what is more important, both lines underscore the resurrection motif. Myron's dialogue also anticipates the end of the play when Hennie escapes with Moe. (p. 51)

Odets maintains his control [of language] when, at the end of [Act two], he reveals, through a sensitive extension of Chekhovian technique, the deeper feelings of Moe after the death of Jacob is announced:

BESSIE. [Jacob] slipped….

MOE (deeply moved). Slipped?

BESSIE. I can't see the numbers. Make [the call to Morty], Moe, make it….

MOE. Make it yourself. (He looks at her and slowly goes back to his game of cards with shaking hands.)

BESSIE. Riverside 7- … (Unable to talk she dials slowly. The dial whizzes on.)

MOE. Don't … make me laugh…. (He turns over cards.)…

Moe and Morty have both learned how to exist in the jungle, but Moe "fights against his own sensitivity" while Morty has no sensitivity against which to fight…. Moe's tag: "Don't make me laugh," contrasts with the hollow, wooden, inhuman tag of Morty: "Ha, ha, ha!"—which suggests that Moe means: "Don't make me laugh like Morty!" Awake and Sing! is full of such subtle touches of characterization and language.

With all its faults, then, Awake and Sing! is a powerful drama and one of the most impressive achievements in the modern theater. An absorbing enactment, told with anger and pity, with humor and love—and above all with verbal brilliance—of people caught in a moment of time, it nevertheless transcends the thirties to reveal the human being in the agony and longing that represents the continuing spiritual plight of man in the twentieth century. (p. 52)