Word: singings
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AWAKE AND SING! by Clifford Odets...
...class. From the vantage point of a half-century, that appears to be all he ever thought about. It is not the most flattering way to remember the man who was once the lodestar of the Old Left. But then neither is the revival of his melodrama Awake and Sing...
Awake and Sing! was immeasurably aided by the personnel of the new Group Theater, and by its star, a youth named John Garfield, who ignited the stage when he stepped upon it. But even they could not disguise the strident, metallic lyricism ("Say the word-I'll tango on a dime"). Nor can the current cast hide the muddled thoughts of the author, who felt that "new artworks should shoot bullets" but who filled the theater with smoke...
Although Odets was 28 when he wrote Awake and Sing!, he could grant only his older characters credibility. As Bessie, Nancy Marchand has a despairing authority, and as her brother Morty, Michael Lombard combines unctuous self-regard and bone-deep insecurity. As the old, unrepentant radical Jacob, Paul Sparer provides a sense of guttering energy that is supposed to illuminate the hopes of the young. It does nothing of the kind. Brother and sister, husband and lover all perform in a declamatory style more appropriate to pageants than to plays. Moreover, Theodore Mann's direction takes the Bergers...
...tours. I gave him $20, and he would buy a lot of candy. He would call all his friends in the neighborhood and Michael would give them candy, and he would enjoy them eating candy. That was the main thing he liked to do, and he loved to sing and dance. Michael's got the gift all right. It's in the record sales and it's in his voice. When he was only about five years old he sang songs like Tobacco Road and Cloud Nine by the Temptations, some of the other songs from Motown...