Odets, Clifford

(1906–63)

   US playwright. Clifford Odets was a prominent member of that group of playwrights whose experience of the depression found expression in a theatre of social protest and hard-hitting realism. He was born in Philadelphia but spent his formative years in New York City. At an early stage, he was attracted to the theatre, and became an actor after graduating from High School. Odets’ far-left, firmly held beliefs were the driving force behind his first production, Waiting for Lefty (1935), which was inspired by a New York taxicab drivers’ strike the previous year. The play was an instant success and was transferred to the Broadway stage with another one-act play about the leftist underground in Germany, Till the Day I Die, which employed a similar multi-faceted technique. He followed this up in the same year with Awake and Sing!, which was acclaimed for its clear-eyed though sympathetic portrayal of New York Jews and its mixture of earthy humour with violent passion. He had a similar success with Golden Boy (1937), with its sensitive characterization of a young Italian boy with musical aspirations who degenerates when he turns prizefighter. Odets was a screenwriter in Hollywood for several years in the 40s, but he never recaptured the anger, idealism and single- mindedness that made his depression-era plays such effective vehicles of protest. Of his later work, the most notable was The Country Girl (1950).