Waiting for Lefty

Waiting for Lefty is a 1935 play by the American

playwright Cliord Odets. Consisting of a series of related vignettes, the entire play is framed by the meeting
of cab drivers who are planning a labor strike. The framing uses the audience as part of the meeting.

their families. Joe pleads that she will wake the children,
but she says she only wants to wake him up. She calls his
union rotten, since they do not tell the workers what
their plans are. Joe admits that they are "racketeers.
When Edna challenges Joe to stand up to them, and he
backs down, she tells him shes going back to her old
boyfriend, since he earns a living. The taxi drivers, still
in the dark, whisper words like she will. Edna turns the
subject to Joes boss who, she says, is creating all these
problems. She encourages Joe to start a workers union
without the racketeers. Joe gets swept up in her passion
and tells her he is going to nd Lefty Costello. Edna
cheers him on. Back in the taxi drivers meeting, one of
the men says that his fellow workers know better than he
does, and that We gotta walk out!"

While this was not Odets rst play, this was the rst to
be produced. It was staged by the Group Theatre, a New
York City theatre company founded by Harold Clurman,
Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg, of which Odets was a
member. The company was founded as a training ground
for actors, and also to support new plays, especially those
that mirrored the social and political climate of the day.
Waiting for Lefty was the rst real critical and popular
success for the Group Theatre, appearing on Broadway as
well as in cities around the United States. It had its British
premiere in 1938 at the Unity Theatre, whose production
so impressed a visiting contingent of the American Group
Theatre that Unity Theatre was given the British rights to
the play.

Fayette, an industrialist, talks in his oce to Miller, a

lab assistant. Fayette tells Miller he is receiving a raise
for his loyalty, and that he'll be switched to a new laboratory tomorrow, where he will work under an important
chemist, Dr. Brenner. Miller is pleased. Fayette tells him
he must remain within the building while he works on
the project, which is to create poisonous gas for chemical
warfare. Fayette tells him that the world is ready for war,
and the U.S. needs to be ready. Miller is somewhat distraught, as he lost several relatives in the last war, including his brother. As Fayette gives him further instructions,
Miller reminisces about his brother. Fayette tells him he
will require a weekly condential report on Dr. Brenner.
Fayette promises higher raises, but Miller refuses to do
any spying. Fayette tells him his country needs him to
do this, but Millers mind is made up he is willing to
lose his job, as he would rather dig ditches rst!" Outraged, Miller punches Fayette in the mouth.

Plot

The play is composed of seven dierent vignettes separated by blackouts. As the play opens, several taxi drivers
sit in a semicircle. To one side stands a gunman. A large
man and union leader, Harry Fatt, tells the men that a
strike is not a good idea. When a man in the crowd mocks
this view, Fatt calls him a red (slang for communist),
says he is alert against their presence in the union, and
claims that the reds, given the chance, will betray their
fellow workers. Questions come from the crowd as to
the whereabouts of Lefty, their elected chairman. Fatt
reminds them they already have their elected committee
present. He lets Joe, one of the workers, speak. Joe maintains he is not a red boy, citing his status as a wounded
war veteran, and discusses how if a worker expresses
dissatisfaction, the union leaders label him a red. He
says his wife convinced him last week to strike for higher
wages, an important theme throughout the play.

Florence tells her brother Irv that she needs something

out of life, and that Sid, who is going to take her to a
dance, provides that. Irv warns her that both he and their
mother disapprove of Sid since he makes little money as
a taxi driver. Florence insists she loves Sid, and that she
works hard to take care of their sick mother. Finally she
buckles and says she'll talk to Sid tonight. Sid comes in,
and Irv leaves. Florence and Sid pretend to be royalty
before kissing. Sid says he knows he is like rat poison
to her family. He tells her his brother joined the navy that
morning, but assures her he won't run away from her. He
says he can tell what she is thinking that she does not
want to marry him anymore. He laments their lowly status
as dogs in life under the thumb of the powerful big shot
money men. He is upset that his brother, a college boy,
has swallowed the money men"'s propaganda and joined

The taxi drivers remain dimly visible on stage as Edna

joins Joe in their home (the scene is supposed to take
place a week before the plays rst scene). She tells him
that their furniture, not yet paid for, was repossessed.
They argue: Joe claims that strikes do not work, and that
they lose money while they are on strike, while she says
that while his salary barely covers rent now, soon the owners will push down their wages even more. She says his
boss is making suckers out of the workers, and out of
1

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the navy to ght foreigners who are, ultimately, just like
himself. Florence says she will follow Sid anywhere, but
he tells her to be realistic. He turns on a record player and
they dance. They stop when the music ends. He tries to
make her laugh, but she buries her face in her hands, and
he buries his face in her lap.
Fatt tells the taxi drivers that they have not investigated
the strike issue as he has; he brings up Tom Clayton, who
was in an unsuccessful strike in Philadelphia. Clayton
says that his experience has taught him that Fatt is right
this time. A man in the audience tells him to sit down,
and Fatt tells his henchmen to take care of him. The
man runs up on stage and says that Claytons real name is
Clancy, and that he is a rat, a company spy, He claims
that Clayton has been breaking up unions in various elds
for years. Clayton keeps denying it, but the man says he
knows it is true because Clayton is his brother. He tells
Clayton to leave, and he does. The man is skeptical of
Fatts ignorance of Claytons true identity.
The elderly Dr. Barnes angrily talks into a phone, upset
that he has to deliver some bad news to Dr. Benjamin on
an issue he opposed. Dr. Benjamin joins him. Benjamin
is upset that he has been replaced for surgery on a poor
woman in critical condition in the charity ward by an incompetent doctor named Leeds, the nephew of a senator.
Barnes tells him that the hospital is shuttering the charity ward because it is rapidly losing money. Furthermore,
they are ring some sta members, including Benjamin.
Though Benjamin has seniority, he is losing his job because he is Jewish. Barnes takes a phone call and learns
that the woman operated on has died. Benjamin throws
down his operation gloves, and Barnes praises his idealism. Benjamin says he was not fully convinced of the
ideas of radicals until now. He decides he has to work on
America, and possibly get a job such as driving a taxi to
allow him to keep studying. He vows to ght, though it
may mean death.
A man named Agate talks to the taxi drivers, rst insulting their lack of strength, then insulting Fatt. Fatt and the
gunman try to detain him, but he gets away with the help
of the committee men. Agate proclaims that if we're
reds because we wanna strike, then we take over their
salute too!" He makes a Communist salute. While the
committee men join in or take over part of his speech,
Agate incites the taxi drivers with ery rhetoric about the
rich killing them o. He tells them to unite and ght!"
He says the reds have helped him in the past. He tells
them not to wait for Lefty, who may never arrive. A
man runs into the house and says they just found Lefty,
shot dead. Agate yells to his fellow union men, Hello
America! Hello. We're storm birds of the working-class.
Workers of the world.... Our Bones and Blood!" and
urges them to die to make a new world. He leads them
in a chorus of Strike!"

PRODUCTION AND RECEPTION

2 Production and reception

Published in the New Theatre with the subtitle A Play
in Six Scenes, Based on the New York City Taxi Strike
of February 1934, the play is in fact only loosely related
to that specic event. Odets himself said But it is just
something I kind of made up...I didn't know anything
about a taxicab strike...I have never been near a strike
in my life.[1] Instead of trying to create a historical account, Odets used the strike as a way to attack what he
saw as the larger issue: that in the middle of the Great
Depression the capitalist structures of the time had remained unaltered.[2]
Performed on a bare stage, actors planted in the audience
reacted to key moments or speeches. The characters often directly addressed the audience, in an eort to break
the fourth wall and incite the viewer to action. In each
scene the other characters continued to be dimly present
in a circle around the current characters, illustrating their
eect on the events of the events unfolding before them.
Odets claimed that he took this form from minstrel shows,
but critics suggest it is more likely that Odets was inspired
by agitprop productions which were gaining popularity in
the early 1930s.[1]
Those involved with and in attendance of the initial production of Waiting for Lefty agree that it had a dramatic
impact on the audience. Harold Clurman, co-founder of
the Group Theatre said of the performance:
The rst scene of "[Waiting for] Lefty had
not played two minutes when a shock of delighted recognition struck the audience like a
tidal wave. Deep laughter, hot assent, a kind
of joyous fervor seemed to sweep the audience
toward the stage. The actors no longer performed, they were being carried along as if by
an exultancy of communication such as I had
never witnessed in the theater before. Audience and actors had become one ...[3]
While the energy of the performance greatly stimulated
the audience, the archetypal characters and the obvious
socialist leanings were a source of criticism for many
writers, including Joseph Wood Krutch who wrote:
The villains are mere caricatures and even
the very human heros occasionally freeze into
stained-glass attitudes, as, for example, a certain lady secretary in one of the ashbacks
does when she suddenly stops in her tracks to
pay tribute to The Communist Manifesto and
to urge its perusal upon all and sundry. No
one, however, expects subtleties from a soapbox, and the interesting fact is that Mr. Odets
has invented a form which turns out to be a
very eective dramatic equivalent of soap-box
oratory.[4]

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Following the initial run, both the play and Odets popularity greatly increased, with hundreds of theatre groups
requesting the rights to perform the piece.[2] The play resonated with both the general public and the artistic community, and its simple staging allowed it to become a popular production for union halls and small theatres across
the country.[5] Such was Odets fame that his next play,
Awake and Sing!, was billed as a piece by the author of
Waiting for Lefty, even though it had been written rst.[2]
The play was shown for the rst time in London for over
thirty years at the White Bear Theatre in February and
March 2013.

References

[1] Weales, Gerald (1991), Waiting for Lefty, in Miller,

Gabriel, Critical Essays on Cliord Odets, G.K. Hall &
Co., ISBN 0-8161-7300-1
[2] Herr, Christopher J. (2003), Cliord Odets and American
Political Theatre, Praeger Publishers, ISBN 0-313-315949
[3] Brenman-Gibson, Margaret (2002), Cliord Odets:
American playwright : the years from 1906 to 1940, Applause theatre & Cinema Books
[4] Krutch, Joseph Wood (1991), Waiting for Lefty and Till
the Day I Die, in Miller, Gabriel, Critical Essays on Clifford Odets, G.K. Hall & Co., ISBN 0-8161-7300-1
[5] Mendelsohn, Michael J. (1969), Cliord Odets: Humane
Dramatist, Everett/Edwards Inc.

External links

Voelker, Selena. The Power of Art and the Fear of Labor:

Seattles Production of Waiting for Lefty in 1936, Great
Depression in Washington State Project.

5 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

5.1

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5.3

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