Staging Waiting for Lefty: Or, Agit-Prop in Ankara

Year 2004, Issue: 19, 117 - 126, 01.04.2004

Ayten Ağartan Burcu Akcan Berna Ayvalı Serap Bizcanlı İrem Bayamlıoğlu Sibel Çekmez Dilek Örnek Sunal Özbek Esra Selçuk Ahmet Anıl Yeniay

Abstract

The premiere of Clifford Odets’s Waiting for Lefty took place on January 6th, 1935 in New York. It was listed on the throwaway without an author’s name, simply as “presented by the cast of The Eagle Guy’” another play that was playing at the same time . Ticket prices ranged from 25 to 90 cents. The director Harold Clurman recalled what happened soon after the play’s beginning: The first scene […] had not played two minutes when a shock of detailed recognition struck the audience like a tidal wave. Deep laughter, not assent, a kind of joyous fervor seemed to sweep the audience toward the stage. The actors no longer performed […] Audience and actors had become one qtd. Gibson 315 .

References

• Berson, Misha. “’Waiting for Lefty’ Is A Labor-Movement History Lesson” (review of Capitol Hill Arts Center revival). Seattle Times, 25th January 2005. URL: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2002159542_lefty25.html
• Gibson, Margaret Brennan. Clifford Odets American Playwright: The Years From 1906 to 1940. New York: Atheneum, 1981.
• Miller, Gabriel. Clifford Odets. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1989.
• Odets, Clifford. Waiting for Lefty. Six Plays of Clifford Odets. New York: Grove Press Inc., 1979: 1-29.
• Wayne, Theoderek, “Waiting for Lefty Revisited by Odets” (2nd December 2001). Website address http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/lefty/ essays/essay1.html. 30th March 2005.
• Weales, Gerald. Clifford Odets: Playwright. New York: Pegasus, 1971.