Waiting for Lefty

Waiting for Lefty Comments

 

Waiting for Lefty is a play written by Clifford Odets in 1934 and 1935. The play examines labor issues in Depression-era New York City. In the play, a group of cab drivers give their views on labor conditions and strikes before being lead to walk out. Waiting for Lefty helped to expand the reputations of both Clifford Odets and The Group Theatre for moving, socially relevent drama.

 

History

 

Waiting for Lefty was the first play by Clifford Odets to be produced, although he had previously written other plays, including Awake and Sing! The Group Theatre staged Waiting for Lefty in February, 1935, moving the production to Broadway on March 26.

 

The original Broadway Production was directed by Sanford Meisner and Clifford Odets. Included in the cast were Odets as Dr. Benjamin, and Elia Kazan as Agate. The play ran for 144 performances, and was picked up again in September 1935.

 

Waiting for Lefty met with great critical and popular response, but also government opposition. In April, 1935, four cast members of a Boston production were arrested for “using profanity in a public assemblage” New York Times, April 7, 1935

 

Characters

 

Fatt

Joe

Edna

Miller

Fayette

Irv

Florrie

Sid

Clayton

Agate Keller

Henchman

Reilly

Dr. Barnes

Dr. Benjamin

A Man

 

Setting

 

A Taxi Driver Union meeting

 

Plot Summary

 

Waiting for Lefty takes place at a Labor Union meeting. Seven committee members sit in a semicircle. Harry Fatt, the union secretary, addresses the workers, many of whom are placed in the audience. Also on stage is a gunman. Fatt is trying to convince the workers that there is no need for a strike, as the President is behind workers and many other strikes have failed. He also accuses the men of being Communist or cowards. Since Lefty, the committee chairman, is missing, Fatt allows the committee members to have their say.

 

First is Joe, who defends himself as a war hero, not a “red”. He announces he wants to strike in order to earn a living wage. The stage turns dark with a center spotlight as Joe begins to tell his story. Throughout the spotlight scenes, the committee men and Fatt act as a murmuring chorus.

 

I. Joe and Edna

 

Joe comes home to find the furniture repossessed. Edna, Joe’s wife, tells him to do something about his job. Joe insists that strikes don’t work because he can lose his job, and that at least he gets paid, even if he can barely pay for his rent. Edna threatens to leave Joe, and then tells him that thousands of men can make a difference. Joe leaves to get his union to walk out.

 

II. Lab Assistant Episode

 

Miller, a lab assistant, is given a promotion by his boss, Fayette. Miller will be working under Doctor Brenner, a famous chemist, for a large raise. Miller discovers he will be working on poison gas, which upsets him because he lost a brother in the last war. Furthermore, Miller is told he will be spying on Doctor Brenner’s activities, This disgusts Miller, who would “rather dig ditches”. Miller quits the job, and punches Fayette in the mouth.

 

III. The Young Hack and his Girl

 

Florrie is getting ready for Sid, a cab driver, to take her to a dance. Her brother, Irv, tells her to stop seeing Sid, because taxi drivers don’t make enough money to raise a family. Sid arrives and guesses what Irv has been telling her to do. Sid talks about his brother, who, despite all the money Sid and his mother saved to put Sam through college, has joined the Navy. Sid says the rich keep the poor clueless about money, including sending poor boys into the military. Sid and Florrie decide that they can’t get married, and can’t remain engaged anymore, so they break up.

 

IV. Labor Spy Episode

 

Fatt introduces Clayton, supposedly a man from a failed Steel strike in Philadelphia. Clayton also opposes a strike. A man from the audience calls Clayton a fraud, saying that he is a labor spy who goes and breaks up labor unions. Furthermore, the voice claims that Clayton’s name is Clancy, and that Clancy is his brother.

 

V. Interne (sic) episode

 

Doctor Barnes, and old surgeon, has to tell his young intern, Doctor Benjamin, that he is being let go because the hospital has to cut costs. Although Benjamin has seniority to the less competent Doctor Leeds, Benjamin is fired because Leeds is a senator’s nephew, and Benjamin is Jewish. Benjamin says the workers who know their jobs don’t run the world, and that he’ll work as a cab driver and fight the system of power.

 

Back at the meeting, Agate Keller, who has a glass eye because he lost his in a factory at age 11, stands and announces himself as a proud member of the working class. Agate also states that he is ashamed of the union for its inaction. Fatt and the gunman try to force Agate to sit down. In the scuffle, Agate’s shirt is torn.

 

Agate states that if striking makes him a red, then he’ll accept the communist salute, since it is an uppercut to the jaw of the upper class. Just as Agate tells the men not to wait for Lefty, a man runs in and tells the crowd that Lefty has been found murdered. Agate leads the men to strike.

 

Analysis

 

Themes

 

• Poverty/Class

 

Throughout the play, class is a central corcern. Joe begins his part of the play saying that he wants to strike "to get a living wage". Doctor Benjamin speaks at length about the rich control medicine, not those who understand it: "I've seen medicine change - plenty . . . not because of rich men - in spite of them!" Also, Agate proudly wears the glass eye he earned in a poorly protected factory as a child, because "it tells the world where I belong - deep down in the working class!" Odets's characters all see themselves in a battle against the rich; a battle that they have been losing as individuals. As discussed below, Odets sees these men as the power of change when combined.

 

• Power of the Workering Class

 

Like in Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape, the workers are shown the have a strong, animalistic power. Miller, quitting his job, says "I'm not the civilized type, Mr. Fayette. Nothing sauve or sophisticated about me. Plenty of hard feelings! Enough to bust you and all of your kind in the mouth!" This physical arger and strength appear again with Agate, who uses the Commuist salute to punch the power system in the mouth. Odets believes in the power of the common worker and is reaching for such workers in the audience to stand up and fight.

 

 

 

Symbols and Devices

 

• Episodes

 

Odets uses the frame of episodes from the committee men's lives in the larger scene of the meeting to add depth to the play. By giving most of the men on stage a chance to explain their reasons for striking, Odets allows for many views on the workers. Both Joe and Sid's fight against poverty, and Benjamin and Miller's fight for ideals created a sympathy for the workers, and explores the issue of labor in through multiple lenses.

 

• Chorus

 

In the play, there are two choruses. One is the onstage committee who comment on the action in the spotlight scenes. Odets is not specific about what and when they talk, but insists that they contribute “various comments, political, emotional, and as a general chorus”. This chorus, consisting of each of the men who have their own story told, builds a unity between these key characters.

 

 

 

The other chorus is in the audience. Several “voices” are hidden throughout the crowd. Their comments represent the common people, and by placing them in the auditorium, Odets creates a strong connection between the workers in the play, and the workers in the audience. This helps push the message into the crowd.

 

• Communist Salute

 

Keller compares the raised fist salute to "the good old uppercut to the chin". Keller uses this salute to rally the workers to fight the upper class. By connecting the desire to fight among the workers to the "red" idea of striking, Agate turns being considered a red from being the unions fear to their strength.

 

 

Criticism

 

Brooks Atkinson, in his New York Times review of Waiting for Lefty, calls the play “clearly one of the most thorough, trenchant jobs in the school of revolutionary drama. . . Waiting for Lefty is soundly constructed and fiercely dramatic in the theatre, and it is also a keen preface to (Odets’s) playwriting talents. Atkinson also states that the Group Theatre “have never played with more thrust, drive and conviction. Waiting for Lefty suits them down to the boards” and “gives its most slashing performance” in the play. New York Times, February 11, 1935.

 

Sources

 

Atkinson, Brooks. "Waiting for Lefty." New York Times February 11, 1935.

 

Odets, Clifford, Waiting for Lefty, Six Plays of Clifford Odets. New York: The Modern Library, 1939.

 

Special to The New York Times, "BOSTON POLICE HALT PLAY FOR PROFANITY; Arrest Four Members of Cast of 'Waiting for Lefty' in Premiere There." New York Times April 7, 1935.

 

"Waiting for Lefty." Internet Broadway Database. 2006. The League of American Theatres and Producers. 6 Oct 2006 <http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=9728>.