http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_6d333e72-aa56-11de-a946-001cc4c03286.htmlBy JOE NICKELL of the Missoulian | Posted: Friday, September 25, 2009 10:35 pm
The backdrop is steely gray, but the mood is even darker when the lights come up on Montana Rep Missoula's production of Clifford Odets' classic Depression-era political play, "Waiting for Lefty." A rowdy gathering of unionized taxi drivers argues over whether to strike. A union leader, the unsubtly named Harry Fatt, insists that the workers should wait for the nation's new president to intervene. When workers in the audience try to shout him down, Fatt calls them Reds, and warns the crowd of the dangers of communism.
"Give those birds a chance and they'll have your sisters and wives in whorehouses, like they done in Russia," shouts Fatt. "They'll tear Christ off his bleeding cross. They'll wreck your homes and throw your babies in the river. You think that's bunk? Read the papers!"
As he bellows that last line, Fatt, played by local theater veteran Howard Kingston, leaps to the front of the stage at the Crystal Theatre and points a front-row audience member straight in the eye.
Read the papers, indeed.
It's been more than 70 years since Clifford Odets penned "Waiting for Lefty," a play that broke new ground in political theater. Written in a time when theatres and movie houses were dominated by feel-good musical productions (that same year saw the Broadway debut of Cole Porter's "Jubilee" and the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film "Top Hat"), "Waiting for Lefty" pinned the ugly truths to the boards, drawing the ugly working conditions, classism and anti-Semitism of the day into the spotlight.
Montana Rep Missoula's first production in a season devoted to labor themes underscores not only Odets' bold writing, but the real connections between that difficult time in American history and our own.
FULL story and photo at link.
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