Clash by Night

by Clifford Odets

Originally presented on December 27th, 1941 in New York City starring Lee J. Cobb, Robert Ryan and Tallulah Bankhead.

Genres: Plays

242 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and director.

Odets was born in Philadelphia to Louis Odets (born Gorodetsky) and Pearl Geisinger, Russian- and Romanian-Jewish immigrants, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high school after two years to become an actor.

In 1931, he became a founding member of the Group Theatre, a highly influential New York theatre company that utilized an acting technique new to the United States. This technique was based on the system devised by the Russian actor and director Constantin Stanislavski. It was further developed by Group Theatre director Lee Strasberg and became known as The Method or Method Acting. Odets eventually became the Group's primary playwright.

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Odets' second bomb in a row had the misfortune of opening just a few weeks after Pearl Harbor, but that wasn't the only strike this grubby melodrama had against it. Even if the sexual politics of the play had not been shortly outpaced by history, the structure groans under the weight of the "message."Alfred Hayes' unfaithful-in-all-the-right-ways screenplay for the underrated Fritz Lang film version shows some of what is wrong here. Hayes condenses several elements to give the relationships some complexity, then lets these complex characters drive the drama.

[Glenn Hopp · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Clifford Odets and do not want to say anything too negative about his play, which may have been a little hammy at times.