Word: gordons
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Ethan Frome (adapted by Owen & Donald Davis; Max Gordon, producer). When Max Gordon announced that he was going to present a dramatized version of Novelist Edith Wharton's frosty little masterpiece, the first thing that came to the minds of those who had read Ethan Frome was that the producer would have a devilish time staging the sledding crash which is the tragedy's ironic climax. As it turns out, there need have been no such public anxiety. Between them, Producer Gordon, the Playwrights Davis and Designer Jo Mielziner have achieved a rare triumph of art and showmanship...
When the play's big moment comes, the curtain parts to reveal a snowy New England hilltop, winterset and blue-white under cold bright stars. Ethan (Raymond Massey) climbs to the top of it, his boots actually squeaking in the glittery surface. Pathetic little Mattie (Ruth Gordon) lies down on the sled with him and, with a whistle of wind, they vanish over the far side of the slope. How they maim themselves, instead of smashing out their lives on the big tree at the bottom as they intended, is told in an epilog...
Impressed by Mr. Odets' previous work, and his audacity in bracketing himself with the late great Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, reviewers settled in their seats at Paradise Lost ready for almost anything. When they rose after the final curtain, none could deny that plenty had happened. Ben Gordon, an Olympic runner, marries a wench who betrays him, gets shot in a holdup. His brother Julie takes three acts to die of sleeping sickness. His sister...
Pearl, in love with a musician who cannot afford to marry her, draws solace from her piano until that, too, is taken from her. Leo Gordon, father of this unhappy brood, is a dreamy designer of pocketbooks whose partner is revealed in rapid succession as a brutal exploiter of his workers, an incipient firebug, an absconder. Half a dozen other characters in Paradise Lost do not get along well either. Nevertheless, Leo Gordon is able to say in a full-length curtain speech that everything is going to be all right now that they have all hit hard...
...onetime actor himself, Playwright Odets instinctively loaded his show with the sort of scenes that are ice cream & cake to most mimes. Stella Adler, as Gordon's wife, gets a chance to knock down her brother, Luther Adler, who plays the part of Gordon's partner. Brother Luther thereupon throws a fit. Somebody else knocks down the boy playing brother Ben. The Gordons' Communist furnace man goes around shouting questionable blank verse and has the opportunity to throw a wine glass at a radio during an Armistice Day program. In addition to the sleeping sickness victim there...