The Country Girl

by Clifford Odets

One of America's great dramatists rocked the worlds of Broadway and Hollywood in this moving drama about a desperately self-destructive alcoholic actor and Georgie, his long-suffering wife. A searing, emotional play of love and redemption. A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance Spencer Garrett, Harry Hamlin, Jamie Hanes, Stacy Keach, Rick Podell, Mandy Siegfried and Mare Winningham.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Theatre

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

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

[Anton Segers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sinds de herverkiezing van Trump vind ik het lastig om al wat uit Amerika komt onbevooroordeeld te bekijken. Je herkent toch wel een aantal dingen. De oppervlakkigheid van de cultuur. De simplismen in de psychologie en het verhaal. De hang naar sentiment en happy end, de wonderlijke bekering en het succes als beloning voor onze empathie, in dit geval met een door zijn zelfmedelijden onuitstaanbare protagonist.
Dat maakt dat zelfs theaterauteurs die bij de yankees hoog aangeschreven staan als deze Clifford Odets middelmatig overkomen vergeleken met de gemiddelde Europeaanse schrijver.

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Country Girl is one of the rawest, most compelling pieces of literature I’ve ever read. Although the event that sets the plot in motion is the return to the stage of Frank Elgin, an alcoholic has-been actor, it’s less about a comeback than it is about a codependent relationship.

His wife Georgie, the titular country girl, is the only one who can keep him from falling apart completely. By today’s standards, it would be easy to dismiss her as the archetypal long-suffering wife, but Georgie has too many nuances to be pigeonholed. For starters, she’s almost two decades younger than Frank; having grown up with an absentee father who dazzled her when he did appear, she married Frank because he was charming and represented a ticket to a new life away from the simplicity of Hartford (Connecticut). Georgie is not stupid: she noticed from the beginning that he drank too much, but thought she could fix that. In their twelve years together, she left and returned twice.

Frank Elgin is simultaneously hateful and pathetic. As Georgie points out, he has a compulsive need to be liked, so he leaves the unsavory tasks that might earn him any antipathy to Georgie. Therefore, people regard her as a manipulative and controlling Lady Macbeth, scheming backstage. Far from feeling any gratitude towards his wife, Frank portrays her as weak and needy to others, making her responsible for his problems to cover his shame. Throughout the play, I wondered why Georgie chooses to stay with him, but I had to remind myself that even the most unhealthy relationships have had some happy moments at some point and she probably clings to them.

Bernie Dodd is the theatre director who gives Frank the opportunity for a new start. He idolized him as a boy and wants him to succeed, but he’s also a misogynist who had a bad divorce and thus is inclined to think ill of all women, including Georgie. Bernie is deceived by Frank and for most of the play, he’s hostile towards her, until she exposes Frank’s ruse. Then she gains his respect and they make an effort to be civil. As it turns out, Bernie’s hostility towards Georgie hid his attraction to her, and there is some suspense as to whether she will ever leave Frank or whether his return to acting will succeed or fail.

I adored The Country Girl as a reader, and I would love to direct a theatrical production and play Georgie Elgin in it. It’s a gift to any artist.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

3½. When I was a rabid drunk, the 1954 film version of this play was one of my favorite films. It left me in ecstatic, self-inflicted agony. I can hardly remember it now. So I figured I'd read the play, seeing as how I've been unhappily sober for about decade at this point. There is a lot of power in this play, and scenes of alcoholic deviousness and compulsive lying in which I painfully recognized myself, but the ending was unsatisfying to me. And I cannot remember how the film ended, if it differed in some more successful way. I need plays in which all hope is destroyed, in which everything is shown to be futile. This one is a little too American for me at this time in my life.

[Carolyn Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

A character-driven drama that could be either extraordinary or abysmal depending on the talent of the players. I see Uta Hagen was Georgie--what that must have been like to see!

Georgie is the wife of a weak, self-centered man, a country girl who was dazzled by his worldliness and has spent the entirety of her marriage being his mama. Rather than making this a surface melodrama though, the writing is deep--you have sympathy for the characters, you have hope, anger, frustration. This would be a difficult play to perform adequately, but it's inspiring me to try.

[Martin Foroz · Rating 4 out of 5]

To understand Odets’ works in general, we need to get back to the time when people were under the economic pressure and see how this affected people’s life. That pressure is the Great Depression and the struggles it caused to not only the working class but also the middle class. Odets by reflecting the impact of such struggles shapes his characters and the way they can peruse their individual dreams and aspirations. In “The Country Girl,” the reader is invited to get involved in both social and psychological aspects of that time. The marital complexity and the individual redemption sometimes make the characters feel they’re between the devil and the deep blue sea. An alcoholic actor, Frank Elgin, tries to find his previous status, work, and life after he experiences a personal tragedy, losing his son, that is apparently the cause for his alcoholism. We also get to know that his trying is not without some side effects one of which is the molding of a love triangle in which Frank is only one of its side. The other two are Georgie, his wife and Bernie Dodd, the director, both of whom are helping Frank to get back to his normal life when he was a very famous actor. This triangle, of course, requires layers of psychological depth that makes this work distinct from Odets’ earlier works, which were mainly interpersonal dramas.

[Ben Rowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this play. Firstly it creates three good parts and the version I listened to had good actors fill those roles. On the otherhand it felt like a tired theme a once talented drunk trying to make it big again. Also it felt a bit dated particularly how we are supposed to take the lead hitting an actress during the performance.

If you are looking for an engaging, easy to follow play then this is a good hit but it is completely missable and wont change or even impact your life in any way.

[Adi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feel very neutral about this. It kind of felt like I kept waiting for the climax and the end was unsatisfying. The characters are the saving grace- very nuanced and complicated but feel very real. However this play just didn't move me, I don't feel like I've learned anything or feel impacted by the events.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another surprisingly sensitive performance by Stacey Keach as all bluster hiding vulnerabilities as an alcoholic actor at the end of his tether given one more chance, but he still can't stop lying and hiding.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth it for the stage directions and parentheticals alone.

[Hank Lin · Rating 4 out of 5]

For every great talent, there are the ten vices he/she keeps to diminish that talent's leonine voice. What unnerves me most about this play is the incredibly frank representation of addiction. Not in a boozy, scared straight, reefer madness kind of way; its protagonist is a charming liar, which would be more more understandable or dramatic if it all served some underlying purpose, but Frank lies pathologically about every little detail of his life. And he's convincing. And charming. And OH MY GOD I SEE MYSELF BECOMING HIM.

[Ali · Rating 1 out of 5]

together with Golden Boy, are kind of Hollywood stories, not very much suited for theatre scene ..

برای نقد و بررسی آثار کلیفورد اودتس، اینجا را بخوانید
http://www.ali-ohadi.com/global/index...

[Maia · Rating 3 out of 5]

better than the movie version

[Brian McCann · Rating 5 out of 5]

2021: Sad, but well-constructed play. Odets does not disappoint!

2025: I don’t even remember reading this before. I thought it was a fine play. Great characters. Highly realistic for the period.