Six Plays of Clifford Odets

by Clifford Odets, Harold Clurman (Illustrator)

Deep in the bowels of Junk Moon, the finest scientists of Planet Immortal are nearing completion of a project that will unlock the secret of immortality. Project Amphora is run by the Consortium, twelve of the planet’s most influential movers and shakers. They aren’t the only ones after Commander Jockey Oldcastle, a wise-cracking space pirate, has heard about the Amphora Project from a banished scientist who is convinced it will lead to the end of the world. Oldcastle sets off to find the project with Adrian Link, a timid botanist who wants only to tend to his plants on the Agricultural Plain, yet Oldcastle finds himself trying to unravel a strange It seems the Amphora Project is turning the citizens of Planet Immortal into crystal. As time runs out, it is up to Oldcastle and Link -- and Link’s exotic, unlikely love interest -- to stop their mysterious extradimensional enemy before their world is lost forever. Hilarious, wildly inventive, and featuring a fantastical cast of mutants, quasihuman robots, intergalactic mercenaries, and two-thousand-year-old immortals, The Amphora Project is a novel that combines elements of science fiction and fantasy and transcends the boundaries of both.

Genres: Drama, Plays, Theatre, American

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and director.

Odets was born in Philadelphia to Louis Odets (born Gorodetsky) and Pearl Geisinger, Russian- and Romanian-Jewish immigrants, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high school after two years to become an actor.

In 1931, he became a founding member of the Group Theatre, a highly influential New York theatre company that utilized an acting technique new to the United States. This technique was based on the system devised by the Russian actor and director Constantin Stanislavski. It was further developed by Group Theatre director Lee Strasberg and became known as The Method or Method Acting. Odets eventually became the Group's primary playwright.

Reviews

[fink · Rating 5 out of 5]

more like clifford o yes! haven’t had luck with play anthologies in the past because they have felt so long and each one runs into the next, but with this i both wanted to let each play sit for a minute and also was so excited for the next. wish i’d read him sooner

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The man who wasn't Barton Fink got his career going with a varied collection of work, which clearly wasn't party-line propaganda from the start. "Waiting For Lefty" is a weird carousel of sketches of exploitation and resistance, whilst "Awake And Sing!" is pretty much impenetrable typing until moody chops kills himself. "Till The Day I Die" starts as consciousness-raising anti-Nazi fare (note that the idea that the Aryan bootboys are closet gays gets loudly insinuated) but the conclusion about twisted loyalties and perceptions of betrayal reads differently when we look at the later career of Elia Kazan, Odets' mate and a member of the original cast. "Paradise Lost" tells the American middle class to throw in its lot with the oppressed and give up the liberal hokum, whilst "Golden Boy" is nearest to Barton's wrestling movie. "Rocket To The Moon" is an entirely different mood, in some ways the first Arthur Miller play that Arthur didn't write. All of these works would benefit from cinematic treatment, so Clifford wasn't really selling out by going to Hollywood. Anyway, who cares how the guy earned his bread? You want an actual Stalinist? Try Dalton Trumbo, he ratted out pacifists to the FBI. Real American hero. Only goddam assholes care how writers vote.

[Philip Athans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no expectations going into this book. I just started reading, and found all six plays had something to say. The first three, Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing!, and Till the Day I Die, were the most overtly political/Marxist while the last two, Golden Boy and Rocket to the Moon fell more into melodrama. All in all this was a fascinating look back at a socially, economically, and politically tumultuous decade that did speak to me here in the distant future of 2024.

[Beth Phillips]

NOTE that the description of this book is totally erroneous and completely bizarre, likely composed by a bot. This volume contains Odets' first six plays (years are dates of first production): Waiting for Lefty (1935), Awake and Sing! (1935), Till the Day I Die (1935), Paradise Lost (1935), Golden Boy (1937), and Rocket to the Moon (1938).

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paradise Lost and "Awake and Sing" are the best of Odets, I believe. Both stories are based on Depresion time situation in US, and families in NY. I like the way Odets use Caruso's Arya's(O'Paradiso, L'Africana ...) and the story of exploring America and lots of other allegories (Sacco - Vanzetti, Blues) and so on

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