<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Waiting For Lefty" at Ensemble Theatre Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm Sundays at 2pm through October 30th</span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br></span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Mention NEOHIOPAL and get $15 tickets!</span></p>
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Clifford Odets' 'Waiting for Lefty' is a pro-labor play that resonates today</h1><h5 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; ">
Published: Monday, October 10, 2011, 5:37 PM Updated: <span class="updated" title="2011-10-10T22:06:30Z" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Monday, October 10, 2011, 6:06 PM</span></h5>
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</span></div><p></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; ">In the annals of plays that start fast and burn white-hot for their duration, it's hard to top "Waiting for Lefty" by Clifford Odets. From the first line -- "You're so wrong, I ain't laughing" -- we are immersed in a confrontational, 1930s-era labor struggle that pulses with humanity.</p>
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This is the inaugural production by Ensemble Theatre at its new Cleveland Heights location, in the former Coventry School. The open and comfortable stage space feels entirely modern, as does, curiously, the play itself.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; ">One reason is because the Ensemble production enlivens this 75-year-old agitprop<b> </b>tract and makes it seem as current as last night's political debate on MSNBC -- with passion replacing pundits and posturing.</p>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241); "><b>Review</b></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 17px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241); "><b>Waiting for Lefty</b></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 17px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241); "><b>What: </b>Ensemble Theatre presents the pro-labor play written by Clifford Odets, directed by Ian Hinz.<span style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
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</span><b>When:</b> Through Sunday, Oct. 30.<span style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
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</span><b>Where:</b> Ensemble Theatre, 2843 Washington Blvd., Cleveland Heights.<span style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
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</span><b>Tickets:</b> $10-$20. Go to <a href="http://ensemble-theatre.org">ensemble-theatre.org</a> or call 216-321-2930.<span style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; ">Also, even though the script itself offers a gaggle of old-timey phrases ("We're stuck like a flivver in the snow"), it feels fresh, since Odets keeps the working-class rage of his characters set to a rolling boil. This reflects the current heated controversy regarding Issue 2, a statewide ballot initiative that would restrict the collective-bargaining power of Ohio's public unions.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; ">When the play was first staged in 1935, workers were mired in the Great Depression and beginning to fight for their rights. Clearly, Odets' sympathies lie entirely on their side.</p>
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At the start, company stooge Harry Fatt is dominating a union hall meeting, trying to dissuade taxi drivers from striking for higher wages. His vigorous language in opposition to the strikers, like all the speeches in this work, fairly leaps off the stage. ("They'll tear Christ off his bleeding cross. They'll wreck your homes and throw your babies in the river!")</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; ">Lasting only an hour, "Waiting for Lefty" is not just a soapbox screed, although there are a couple of righteous rants. Instead, it highlights several workers in flashback vignettes that show how they came to participate in union activities.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; ">Hack driver Joe is shamed into more militant action by his frustrated though loving wife, Edna. And an industrialist named Fayette wants his chemist to work on poison gas for the military, noting that "if Uncle Sam went sentimental over human life, there'd be no business of any kind."</p>
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Plenty of oxen are gored in this play, and the wounds are dealt out in properly melodramatic style by a focused cast under the direction of Ian Hinz. Notable in the tight ensemble are Eric Roediger as the repulsive Fatt and Colston "Skip" Corris as the amoral Fayette. Layla Schwartz is affecting, turning her wrenching portrayal of Edna into a cameo of desperation.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 20px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Verdana; ">Hinz energizes the piece by projecting brief video clips between the vignettes, showing period footage of the streets of New York along with a startling nuclear bomb sequence.</p>
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But the essence of the play is captured in two separate moments when Allen Branstein and Stephen Vasse-Hansell, as aggressive union guys, almost pop their carotid arteries defending their organization.</p>
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Somewhere, Odets is lifting his fist in a salute.</p>
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<i>-- Christine Howey</i></p><div><br></div><div>Original article link: <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/onstage/index.ssf/2011/10/clifford_odets_waiting_for_lef.html">http://www.cleveland.com/onstage/index.ssf/2011/10/clifford_odets_waiting_for_lef.html</a></div>
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<div style="text-align:left"><span style="font-family:georgia, serif"><b><font color="#660000">WAITING FOR LEFTY</font></b></span></div><div style="text-align:left"><font face="georgia, serif"><b><font color="#660000">by: Clifford Odets</font></b></font></div>
<div style="text-align:left"><font face="georgia, serif"><b><font color="#660000">Directed by: Ian Hinz</font></b></font></div><div style="text-align:left"><font face="georgia, serif"><b><font color="#660000">Oct. 7-Oct. 30</font></b></font></div>
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