| Paradise Lost | |
|---|---|
 First edition 1936 | |
| Written by | Clifford Odets |
| Date premiered | December 9, 1935 |
| Place premiered | Longacre Theatre, New York City |
| Original language | English |
| Setting | The Gordon home in an American city |
Paradise Lost is a drama by Clifford Odets that takes place in 1932, during the Depression. The play was originally produced on Broadway by the Group Theatre in 1935. It was also filmed for television broadcast in 1971.
The play takes place in an unnamed American city during the Depression, in 1932. The head of the family, Leo, and his wife Clara are middle-class and prosperous. However, over the course of the play Leo and his partner Sam lose their handbag business and the family must come to terms with this. The other characters in the play include a friend, Gus, and his daughter, Libby, a frivolous and self-centered young woman who is newly married to Leo's son Ben; a boarder, and an assortment of other characters.
Odets said of Paradise Lost that he'd hoped that after people see it, "they're going to be glad they're alive". [1]
Directed by Harold Clurman, Paradise Lost premiered on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre in a Group Theatre production. It opened on December 9, 1935, and closed in February 1936 after 73 performances.
| Paradise Lost | |
|---|---|
 DVD | |
| Directed by | Glenn Jordan |
| Written by | Clifford Odets |
| Produced by | Glenn Jordan Jac Venza |
| Starring | Eli Wallach Jo Van Fleet George Voskovec Bernadette Peters Cliff Gorman Fred Gwynne |
Release dates |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Glenn Jordan directed a television revival production of Paradise Lost that was first broadcast on American Public Television in two parts, on February 25 and March 4, 1971. The editor was Frank Herold and the play was recorded at Teletape Studios, NYC. Herold received a 1972 Emmy Award nomination for video editing. [2]
Paradise Lost was released on DVD in April 2002 by Kultur's DVD Broadway Theater Archive. [3] According to Luther Adler in the presentation's intro, Paradise Lost was Clifford Odets' favorite and Harold Clurman considered it one of the six or seven really important contemporary American plays.
Brooks Atkinson reviewed the play in The New York Times on December 10, 1935:
"Paradise Lost" is more an exercise in style than an organic drama. ... The style does not flow naturally out of the ... characters who inhabit the play. ... If the design of the play is apparently formless and aimless, that is Mr. Odets's conscious way of reflecting the stalemate lives of the society he is describing. It results in several bold and exhilarating scenes, several vigorous characters, a good deal of sinewy dialogue—and considerable incidental foolishness. ... "Paradise Lost"" is a very mixed package. [4]
The reviewer for The New York Times wrote of the 1971 television film that the play was
an inordinately difficult work, especially on the home screen. ... Mr. Odets piled episode upon episode and remorselessly twirled his sociological revolving door with too many people. ... It is a totality of the vagaries of humanity under varying degrees of despair and hopelessness. ... The inarticulation of people to develop thoughts and philosophies may not make for the most exciting conventional theater but it can be a cameo of persons as they really are, a portrait of society at loose ends. [5]
Uta Thyra Hagen was a German-American actress and theatre practitioner. She originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, who called her "a profoundly truthful actress." Because Hagen was on the Hollywood blacklist, in part because of her association with Paul Robeson, her film opportunities dwindled and she focused her career on New York theatre.
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, director, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdraw from Broadway's commercial pressures and increasing critical backlash. From January 1935 Odets' socially relevant dramas were extremely influential, particularly for the remainder of the Great Depression. His works inspired the next several generations of playwrights, including Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon, and David Mamet. After the production of his play Clash by Night in the 1941–'42 season, Odets focused his energies primarily on film projects, remaining in Hollywood for the next seven years. He returned to New York in 1948 for five and a half years, during which time he produced three more Broadway plays, only one of which was a success. His prominence was eventually eclipsed by Miller, Tennessee Williams, and in the early- to mid-1950s, by William Inge.
The Group Theatre was a theater collective based in New York City and formed in 1931 by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg. It was intended as a base for the kind of theatre they and their colleagues believed in— a forceful, naturalistic and highly disciplined artistry. They were pioneers of what would become an "American acting technique", derived from the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavski, but pushed beyond them as well. The company included actors, directors, playwrights, and producers. The name "Group" came from the idea of the actors as a pure ensemble; a reference to the company as "our group" led them to "accept the inevitable and call their company The Group Theatre."
Stella Adler was an American actress and acting teacher. She founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City in 1949. Later in life she taught part time in Los Angeles, with the assistance of her protégée, actress Joanne Linville, who continued to teach Adler's technique. Her grandson Tom Oppenheim now runs the school in New York City, which has produced alumni such as Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Elaine Stritch, Kate Mulgrew, Kipp Hamilton, Jenny Lumet, and Jeff Celentano.
Waiting for Lefty is a 1935 play by the American playwright Clifford Odets; it was his first play to be produced. Consisting of a series of related vignettes, the entire play is framed by a meeting of cab drivers who are planning a labor strike. The framing uses the audience as part of the meeting.
Luther Adler was an American actor best known for his work in theatre, but who also worked in film and television. He also directed plays on Broadway.
Golden Boy is a drama by Clifford Odets. The play was initially produced on Broadway by The Group Theatre in 1937. Odets' biggest hit was made into a 1939 film of the same name, starring William Holden in his breakthrough role, and also served as the basis for a 1964 musical with Sammy Davis, Jr.
Harold Edgar Clurman was an American theatre director and drama critic. In 2003, he was named one of the most influential figures in U.S. theater by PBS. He was one of the three founders of New York City's Group Theatre (1931–1941). He directed more than 40 plays in his career and, during the 1950s, was nominated for a Tony Award as director for several productions. In addition to his directing career, he was drama critic for The New Republic (1948–1952) and The Nation (1953–1980), helping shape American theater by writing about it. Clurman wrote seven books about the theatre, including his memoir The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre and the Thirties (1961).
Jay Adler was an American actor in theater, television, and film.
Deadline at Dawn is a 1946 American film noir, the only film directed by stage director Harold Clurman. It was written by Clifford Odets and based on a novel of the same name by Cornell Woolrich. The RKO Pictures film release was the only cinematic collaboration between Clurman and his former Group Theatre associate, screenwriter Odets. The director of photography was RKO regular Nicholas Musuraca. The musical score was by German refugee composer Hanns Eisler.
John Strasberg is the son of Lee and Paula Strasberg of the Actors Studio, and brother of actress Susan Strasberg.
Phoebe Brand was an American actress.
Robert Lewis was an American actor, director, teacher, author and founder of the influential Actors Studio in New York in 1947.
Awake and Sing! is a drama written by American playwright Clifford Odets. The play was initially produced by The Group Theatre in 1935.
Thomas G. Waites is an American actor and acting instructor born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Waites runs an acting studio in New York City which is named for him. He has been a member of the Actors Studio since 1984.
Roman Aloys Bohnen was an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the films Of Mice and Men (1939), The Song of Bernadette (1943), and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).
Pine Brook Country Club is a private lake association in Nichols, Connecticut. It began when Benjamin Plotkin purchased Pinewood Lake and the surrounding countryside on Mischa Hill in the historic village of. Plotkin built an auditorium with a revolving stage and forty rustic cabins and incorporated as the Pine Brook Country Club in 1930. Plotkin's dream was to market the rural lakeside club as a summer resort for people to stay and enjoy theatrical productions. The Club remained in existence until major fighting broke out in Europe in the mid-1940s and was reorganized as a private lake association in 1944.
Rocket to the Moon is a 1938 play by the American playwright Clifford Odets. Originally produced by the Group Theatre at Broadway's Belasco Theatre, directed by Harold Clurman, starring Morris Carnovsky, Luther Adler and Eleanor Lynn.
Night Music is a 1940 play by Clifford Odets. Written in 1939 and produced by the Group Theatre, the play was a commercial failure, closing after 20 performances.
The Big Knife is an American play by Clifford Odets. The original production was directed by Lee Strasberg, who had worked with Odets at the Group Theatre, and starring fellow Group Theatre alumnus John Garfield. The play debuted at Broadway's National Theatre on 24 February 1949 before closing on May 28th after 109 performances. The Big Knife marked the return of Odets to Broadway after a six-year hiatus in which he toiled in Hollywood as a screenwriter and motion picture director. The play concerns the disillusionment of a movie star with the Hollywood's studio system and disgust with himself, as he has lost his idealism in the pursuit of success.