Awake & Sing Reviews

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 6:57pm

I'm about to head out, but here's one or two. TalkinBroadway is Positive:

"So timeless are these subjects, and so forcefully does Odets present them, that Awake and Sing! still has the power to move and surprise. If the play's socialist and Marxist overtones have dated in the years following the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the conflict as reflected in the play's primary ideological combatants, Bessie (Zoë Wanamaker) and her father Jacob (Ben Gazzara), still resonates with relevance.
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Schreiber must share the blame, with a clunky, modern performance that misses every waypoint along Ralph's road to maturation. Creating neither a starry-eyed dreamer nor a belittled son seeking emotional refuge, he's unable to ground the play; only the strong efforts of his castmates, including a superb Ned Eisenberg as Ralph's entrepreneurial uncle and Jonathan Hadary as his milquetoast father, keep the play from
flying off around him.
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His bustling, busy staging of the fifth-floor walk up family home perfectly situates the Bergers in locale and era, he treats them with great respect and poignancy, and his work with most of the actors (excepting Schreiber and a hysteric Richard Topol as Hennie's harried husband) results in a generally exquisite ensemble.

The standout, however, is Mark Ruffalo as Moe Axelrod, the racketeering boarder who arouses long-dormant feelings in both Ralph and Hennie. As Ruffalo plays him, he transcends the caricature of a man who's balanced the Bessies and Jacobs of the United States into a workable system, and becomes instead a man of immense sympathy and passion. He sees - and enables others to see - that aspirations, however unlikely, can be made a reality.
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Sher's modernist meddling doesn't help drive home Moe's encouraging sentiments. But Raffalo's charm and charisma, and that of his castmates, keep Odets's messages about the possibilities of life wide awake and singing melodiously.


http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/AwakeAndSing.html

Updated On: 4/17/06 at 06:57 PM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 7:02pm

Newsday is Mixed

"How we would love to be rediscovering "Awake and Sing!," the Clifford Odets landmark the Lincoln Center Theater opened last night at the same Belasco Theatre that embraced the 1935 premiere.

Certainly, our time should be hungering for a drama about real values, about a family torn apart by materialism, about what the idealistic lefty grandfather condemns as a life "printed on dollar bills." Besides, this is the centenary of the birth of one of the country's earliest playwrights of conscience. A jolt of thrilling American theater history would be a reason to party.

Despite an intriguing cast, alas, Bartlett Sher's production is more conscientious than exciting, more respectful than galvanizing. This formation of the Bergers, the working-class Jewish family in the Bronx, seldom feels as if its members grew up on the same light and air. Odets' original three-act, two-intermission structure drains what little momentum gets built. His common-man poetry sounds more self-conscious than musical. Stranger still, the emotions feel dwarfed by the size of the theater.
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Sher and this design team are responsible for the Lincoln Center Theater's gorgeous-looking production of "The Light in the Piazza." Here, Michael Yeargan's apartment set seems awfully airy for the stifling, overcrowded, Depression context. Catherine Zuber's handsome costumes are perhaps too spiffy, especially for the women. After all, Odets got his title from the prophet Isaiah, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust." The dust on his script remains.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/stage/ny-secsing4705381apr18,0,6730872.story?coll=ny-theater-headlines

[QMAN03]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 7:06pm

I agree with Newsweek much more than Talkin Broadway.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 7:13pm

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter is Mostly Positive:

"Clifford Odets' impassioned Depression-era drama receives a much needed revival courtesy of the Lincoln Center Theater.

Although this "Awake and Sing!" never completely resonates with the necessary authenticity, Bartlett Sher's forceful production is an invaluable reminder of an era in which social issues mattered in the theater.

Depicting the travails of an immigrant Jewish family eking out an existence during the Depression in a Bronx tenement apartment, the play doesn't come across today as exactly subtle in its message. But as a deeply felt portrait of societal despair it still manages to live up to its exhortatory title. This production also serves as a veritable time capsule since its home, the Belasco, is the very theater in which the play premiered in 1935."

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=stageNews&storyid=2006-04-17T223939Z_01_N17288387_RTRIDST_0_STAGE-STAGE-AWAKE-DC.XML

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 7:26pm

AP is Positive:

"Clifford Odets' "Awake and Sing!" is a clarion call to arms, a domestic drama that stands tall on a soapbox of personal and political activism.

And Lincoln Center Theater does full justice to this stirring, venerable work, a play very much of its original time and place, New York 1935, in the middle of the Depression and uncertainty around the world.

This clear-headed revival, skillfully directed by Bartlett Sher, opened Monday at Broadway's Belasco Theatre, the same theater where the play had its world premiere 71 years ago.
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Zoe Wanamaker gives a fierce, fireplug of a performance as the shrewd, practical Bessie. She's a woman driven by economic insecurity. Bessie idolizes her brother, Morty (Ned Eisenberg), a successful businessman in the garment trade, and she barely tolerates the family's grandfather, Jacob, portrayed with a graceful fragility by Ben Gazzara. He's an aging revolutionary who spouts diatribes against the capitalistic system and listens contentedly to opera recordings by Caruso.
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Odets' reputation has suffered over the years, and some of his later plays, such as "The Country Girl" and "The Flowering Peach," don't have the urgency of such quintessential 1930s works such as "Waiting for Lefty," "Golden Boy" and "Rocket to the Moon."

But "Awake and Sing!" is his masterpiece, a tough-minded, sentimental and, in the end, optimistic portrait of a family struggling to survive. It is the stuff of great all-American theater.
http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/news/celebrity/sns-ap-theater-awake-and-sing,0,7537039.story?coll=mmx-celebrity_heds

[Al Dente]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 7:42pm

Margo, you're not seriously giving any creedence to an ATC review are you? I don't even need to see this version to know eveything that review said (good or bad), misses the mark by a mile.

Matthew Murray isn't fit to write traffic directions for visiting relatives, let alone a review of an Odett play.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 8:51pm

NY Times seems mixed positive.
NY Times - Awake and Sing

[DG]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 1:54am

This production didn't do a thing for me - but I saw it in previews, so who knows what may have been changed. I doubt the design concepts were altered, though, and the sets and lighting were . . . pedestrian, at best.

I do hope the cast settled into things, because when we saw it, it came across as if they had met the day before for the first time.

[Calvin]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 10:21am

Broadway.com is mixed-to-positive. I thought I was the only one who really liked Zoe Wanamaker in this.

http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=527629

It's rather surprising that this production works as well as it does considering the conflicting styles of acting onstage. Although Wanamaker's Bessie is an unqualified triumph, and Hadary's turn as her husband is impressively small-scaled, many of the other cast members seem to be in slightly differentiated times.

.......

Awake and Sing! may not earn too many new devotees with this production, but its existence is more than welcome and its two-and-a-half hour length is never unwarranted or overextended. There is so much in Odets' artistry that still rings true in our similarly run society where the almighty dollar is so crucial (especially in New York City) that it never feels like a steeped-in-mothballs anomaly. And Wanamaker's performance is so steely and captivating, awake is certainly how one feels exiting the Belasco Theatre.

[Sings_in_the_Rain]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 11:13am

I loved Zoe Wanamaker. She was amazing. I thought the set and lighting were well done. Though, I was a little underwhelmed by the production as a whole. And I was disappointed by Mark Ruffalo. But, I only saw the second preview, so maybe much has improved by then.
Updated On: 4/18/06 at 11:13 AM

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 12:18pm

I though Zoe Wanamaker was the only good thing about the production. I found it dull and interminable. Guess I have very different taste when it comes to this year's plays (compared to most people). I enjoyed Three Days of Rain, Festen, Rabbit Hole and hated Well, Awake and Sing and History Boys.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 3:11pm

Wildly eneven casts and a lack of ensemble playing were a big Achille's heel for Sher's productions in Seattle.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 4:15pm

Hate to be the contrarian here, but I thought that Zoe Wanamaker was completely miscast as Bessie. She's much too sweet and maternal, and came off as sympathetic and lightweight in what is supposed to be a firebrand role. She does the best she can, but overall I was very underwhelmed.

Lauren Ambrose, on the other hand, I found to be extraordinary.

[Calvin]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 4:23pm

I liked Lauren Ambrose as well as Pablo Schreiber, who also is getting quite a bit of criticism. I thought Jonathan Hadary was outstanding, too.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 4:24pm

Jonathan Hadary grates me (always has), but he's very right for this role. I liked Schreiber too.

What did you think of Ruffalo?

[Calvin]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 4:28pm

I wasn't as enthralled with him as the critics seem to be, but I thought it was a commendable performance.

Ben Gazzara -- I had a difficult time hearing and understanding him.

I really didn't like the lifting walls. I thought it was very distracting and certainly not worth the small point I assume they were trying to make.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 4:29pm

I found Gazzara hard to hear as well, and I was sitting pretty close. He also sounded like he was in pain most of the time he was speaking.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 4:32pm

Funny, I found both Schreiber and Ambrose shrill and over-the-top -- I could see them ACTING in every scene and didn't buy them as real people (though Ambrose was passable in some of the quieter moments; Schreiber seemed to be in love with his own emoting). And we obviously saw two completely different performances from Wannamaker -- she was a powerhouse the night I saw her, very dynamic and hard without an ounce of sweetness in her. She ruled that family with an iron fist. I also liked Ned Eisenberg a lot. Ruffalo has the hardest role in the show, especially with all of that 30s corkscrew slang that's all but impossible to make sound like real speech today, but I think he did well overall and handled to role's contradictions beautifully.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 4:41pm

I wish I had seen Wanamaker acting remotely the way you described her, Margo, because I've been a fan of her work for years. However, she came off more like Blanche DuBois than Bessie Berger when I saw it: She was flighty, neurotic and nowhere close to being grounded in realism. I kept thinking back to Tovah Feldshuh's galvanizing characterization of Bessie a decade ago, and found Wanamaker's rendering overwrought.

Different strokes, I guess. Maybe I saw her on an off night.

[Calvin]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 5:07pm

The Bessie I saw was, to put it frankly, a determined, icey bitch. I thought she was fantastic. How early in the run did you see it, MEF?

And is Richard Topol any relation to Chaim Topol?

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 5:52pm

I saw it last night, Calvin.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 6:35pm

Barnes was mixed

Of course he did not like the originalFollies. Anyone we have spoken to has loved it. We will see it Saturday and look forward to enjoying it

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:33pm

I was very much looking forward to the show after having seen Zoe's incredible performance as Electra a few years back.

Found I could not get much into Odets' play, and I was not in a good mood, to boot, though I'm not sure that colored my impressions. I sure wasn't buying the Jewishness of the household, though I kept telling myself they must be secular or athiest Jews, but even then. Reminded myself that some Jews had followed Marx, that idealism had helped create the Kibbutzes in Israel, but even still.

Perhaps it was that I just didn't like most of the characters in this disfunctional family so I didn't care about them. I got so I actually wished the mother would shut up. The woman who was formerly my favorite stage actress! (I am passing the baton to Victoria Clark.) If only I could have seen her tear the boards as the Scottish Queen instead.

The only character in the play that was compelling to me was Ruffalo's as the haunting presence of the war-wounded soldier, compelled to live out the rest of his life maimed, with some of the daily reality and anger about that. That was the best statement about war the play could make. Yet Odets doesn't even give you this guy to like, since he doesn't give a damn about a baby getting left behind.

I found the Marxist prattle of the grandpere tiresome, though I'm sure Odets intended him to be the focus of the play given that it was the 30's and communist/socialist politics were on the agenda in The Great Depression.

The only character whom I thought had any nobility, and whom this crap family was doing their best to harm, was the poor shlep who was a kind man who unknowingly married the pregnant daughter/sister.

There was no moral or spiritual fiber under this play though the playwright was pretending to have it. And though Godless, it didn't at least attempt to ask the hard questions about purpose and meaning in life, which at least the existentialists agonized over. It just said, at the end, everybody just take what you want when you want it and damn the kind innocent people and the babies--oh, but always be a good boy and give the money to your mother, even if she's a total immoral b&tch who doesn't care if she ruins the life of a nice guy with her slut daughter and makes her Dad jump off the roof from her meanness.

Perhaps they should have tossed the mother and daughter off the roof at the beginning of the play and enjoyed a jovial game of cards for the rest of it, listening to Caruso and talking war stories.