Paradise Lost at the A.R.T. Loeb Drama Center

PARADISE LOST
Play by Clifford Odets
Directed by: Daniel Fish. Set, Andrew Lieberman. Costumes, Kaye Voyce. Lights, Scott Zielinski. Sound, Clive Goodwin. Video, Joshua Thorson.
Presented by: American Repertory Theatre.
At: Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, through March 20.
Tickets, $25-75, 617-547-8300

Look, I really want to actually love a production by the A.R.T. at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge. The theater architecture is fabulous: a proscenium that can stretch out into the audience if necessary, a stage deep enough to contain the four horsemen of Notre Dame, wide enough to hold a whole Chorus Line, and high enough to feature aerial acts. So much potential. 

I don’t mind that A.R.T. directors push the envelope. I do mind if they crumple it so it’s too much effort to make use of it.
 
The current production of Clifford Odets' Paradise Lost is a challenge for audiences in any form it’s delivered. Over 2 1/2 hours long with two intermissions and a large cast, it requires stamina to appreciate under the best of circumstances.
 
Odets (1903-1963) had Eastern European roots, lived through the Great Depression, and flirted with Communism. He had a bone to pick with America’s economic collapse. His anger seemed equally distributed between the people who accepted the Depression with equanimity and the government that seemed incapable of doing much about it.
 
In the play’s program, Clifford Odets is quoted as saying, “It is my hope that when people see Paradise Lost, they’re going to be glad they’re alive. And I hope that after they’ve seen it, they’ll turn to the strangers sitting next to them and say ‘hello’.”
 
I sat next to my theater companion and said, “What…?”
 
The play opened with nine members of three families sitting around a dining room table in an American city on Armistice Day in the early 1930s. One way or another, all of them are being ground down by the Great Depression.
 
We have handbag manufacturer Leo Gordon, his wife Clara, their two sons Ben and Julie, and their daughter Pearl. We have Leo’s business partner Sam Katz, and his wife Bertha. We have Gus Michaels, a family friend, and Libby Michaels, his daughter, who marries Ben. We have Kewpie, a friend of Ben’s. We have Mr. Pike, a furnace man, given to perorations. We have Mr. May, Phil Foley, Felix, and a few others who appear only on videotape. A couple of actors play dual roles.
 
We have patrons scanning their programs to figure out who is who and piece together how this web fits together.

Director Daniel Fish’s choice to video scenes taking place on the wide stage's perimeter and project them onto a huge screen directly over the stage adds punch to those scenes. It's distracting when he videotapes action at center stage and projects it right over the actors performing it. Our video savvy eyes gravitate to the projected imaging on the screen. Our theater eyes keep saying, whoa, watch the real live action right in front of you on stage.

Some of the most rousing soliloquies come from populist laborer Mr. Pike, who seems to fill the role of Greek chorus. Pike does a good job of standing on Odets' soapbox but the rest of the play rambles.

Leo and Sam’s business is going down.  Ben’s marriage to Libby is failing. Leo’s relationship with his family is loving but distant. Sam has secrets that emerge in the final scenes. The fact that none of this is pretty is beside the point. The problem is there doesn’t seem to be an emotional core to the play that we can relate to, or worse, care about.
 
Odets’ themes of inter-generational family clashes, middle class struggles to gain economic footing, and the effect of money and greed on relationships, are worthy. They just do not gel here.

I’m not asking director Daniel Fish to sugar-coat Odets' dramatic pessimism. I’d just like to see a play that delivers a clearer vision of what Odets was trying to say.

Photo courtesy of American Repertory Theater website

Comments

[Susaan]

Good one - I like when you're choosy about what you like.

[Kristen]

Paul,
Thanks! I really appreciate your reviews, so I can save my pennies for the good ones.

[Ann]

Sometimes they make me mad. If you've got a good story JUST TELL IT . If you've got good ACTORS THEY KNOW HOW. LET THEM DO IT !!

[Bambi]

You've summed up the experience well. I wish I had been given tickets to "Stick Fly" instead.....

[Cathleen]

From my thoughts to your email! You have put into words my exact thoughts. Loved reading this.

[Bambi Good]

just closed down my computer to look at some of this week's papers and came across today's g section with Louise Kennedy's not very positive review of "Paradise" in which she said she was quite confused by some of the things we were... if you don't have the Globe, and you want to see her review, you can check boston.com for "ART's 'Paradise' gets lost". The program notes were actually much more interesting to me than the review. Bambi