Resident Dramaturg Meghan Beals McCarthy chats with director Amy Morton on Northlight's upcoming production of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!

Meghan Beals McCarthy: Odets is still a pretty popular playwright; what in particular makes Awake and Sing! important now?

Amy Morton: Well, there's the obvious, which is: we're in a major recession no matter what anybody says about "oh, we're done with the recession."

M: Yes. "We're recovered."

A: Yeah, "we're recovered; we're a lot better." So there's the obvious one and I think that's one hell of a good enough reason to do it. Also, the play is about how petty we are; we are reduced to pettiness because of poverty; what poverty does to people. Petty back then is very different then our petty right now.

I think that with all the ways in which we can communicate now - and the fact that so many of us (whether or not we know it) live our lives in public - it's become a meaner world. And what that's reduced us to in this economic crisis as opposed to that economic crisis? It feels like it was a smaller world back then in terms of your own personal world. Now we're in a recession and our world is much bigger, and what we're willing to do as a society to make a buck is a lot. Back then, I have a feeling we weren't asked to degrade ourselves as much.

But the biggest disservice poverty can do to human beings is make them "less than," and when people feel "less than," they can behave in really petty ways towards each other. In this family [the Bergers], it manifests itself in people lying to each other; mothers lying to their children, which is just fricking weird, man. People marrying the person they don't love for security... it's a terrible, terrible thing.

I also think there's something about Odets... as mean as these characters get, he loves them all and you can tell that in the writing. On the surface, Bessie can look kinda monstrous, but he makes her very understandable because of the situation they're all in.

There's also that language that we don't speak in anymore, that I don't even think that back then they spoke in that often. There's all that slang thrown in that you're like, "what is this a film noir?" and I watching fricking Sam Spade? It's so much fun, it's so, uh, descriptive, it's so wise-guy and funny. That's just fun to work on even just to figure out what they hell they were talking about.

M: It's very provoking language. They really get at each other.

A: Yeah, yeah.

M: Can we talk a little bit about ideals? Jacob has all these ideals, but his biggest regret was that he was never able to act on them. And there's a lot that he wants for Ralph; do you think that Ralph has a better shot at success just because he's a different generation in a different time frame?

A: Well, I think Jacob is a first generation, I mean, fresh off the boat. And I think he came to this country because of persecution and so those ideals were absolutely unable to be met in his country, whichever country that is. So you come to a brand new country, not knowing the language, and you've got a lot of things stacked against you. And, if you are married with children, I think your ideals need to take a backseat to putting food on the table and getting a place to live. And particularly, having a Communist ideal was really hard; this country is a really hard place to have that dream come true. It's never going to happen. It's not how this country was born. He moved to the wrong place, quite frankly.

And it's the reason Bessie's dream never came true. If you have mouths to feed, ideals need to go on the back burner. And I think that's true for every generation.

M: What else draws you personally to this play?

A: The fact that how unbelievably idealistic this play is to the point that it's almost laughable. There's something about that that breaks my heart, particularly now, and the fact that that, you know, that ending is weird. That is a weird ending: in this day and age for a mother to leave her child... well probably any day and age... that's a weird ending. I truly believe it's meant to be hopeful. So that absolutely draws me. I have no conclusion to make of that yet, other than every time I read the script and I get to the end, I'm like "how am I going to pass this off?" Because it confounds me as well. I truly don't believe this is intended to be a dark ending. It think it is not without its paradoxes and without its irony, but I do believe that Odets - for the most part - is a hopeful writer. Um, so that, of course, is like really intriguing.

Also, the naïveté of the play [draws me] and I don't mean that Odets is a naïve writer, because I don't think he was, but there's Ralphie: the most naïve character in the play, who is nothing but love. He's a big f***ing ball of love that people are constantly trying to shit on and the fact that he's standing there at the end of the play willing to say, "Fine, take my money. Fine, take my girl. Fine, sister, go. I have two strong arms and that's all I need," is retardedly heartbreaking and lovely and as we know, he doesn't win because we know history and those people rarely do win. Do you know what I mean?

M: Yeah. Morty wins. Morty has no wife, no child, sleeps with dress models, has no responsibilities other than himself...

A: ...sleeps with dress models, has a chauffeur, has a Japanese servant, and his sister is living in poverty... that's interesting. I'll come over and eat at my sister's house, but I'm not going to give her any more money.

M: And then I'll complain that she's serving duck and not a goose.

A: That's curious and the way things are. And that's why I say Odets is not a naïve playwright and that his villains are questionable. Because his villains have soft spots and you know, good people are sometimes ridiculous. So I think that's all really human and what attracts me to the story.

You know, there are times I just don't want to read it. I have to say I cry every time I read it. If I read this in the early ‘90s maybe I wouldn't [cry], but where we are now this thing is really hard to take for me. This is a very personal play for me it and I think I think it's going to be personal for people who watch it, more so than they will expect it to be. I was caught off-guard when BJ asked me to read it. I thought, "Well, I've always liked Odets, sure, I'll read it." I read it and just went, "Jesus Christ...." I think BJ's timing couldn't be better for this and I just think it's a beautiful contemporary play.

M: Yeah, I do think it will take people by surprise. We hear the same play differently depending on where we are in our lives. It's so remarkable.

A: I know. It's f***ing remarkable.

M: That's theatre; that's what I love.

A: And people always wonder, "How do older people hate watching the news? I f***ing love it!" but now I know. And even when you read this and Myron starts talking about "we don't get winters anymore" it's like, god, he's even talking about climate change! It's really amazing how completely dead-on it is for where we sit right now. I'm just, floored by that, I really am.

M: Well, it is an incredibly rich play and it's going to be so much..."fun" may not be the right word. Gratifying, challenging, rewarding and scary to work on. But so great, so great.

A: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.

M: You have a terrific cast. What are going to be the challenges for this particular ensemble?

A: I think that because it speaks to where we are right now, it makes the actors all the more eager to make sure they do justice... that this story is told in the correct way. You know, it's really easy to read this and go "oh, they're cartoons," you know, the fact that they're the stereotype of the New York Jew back in the ‘30s. The language is written very Bronx New York Jew. The trick is to make sure we don't fall... we don't lean into any of that because the story isn't really just about a Jewish family. It's about all of us.

And that language, not just the ethnicity of the language, the ‘30s of the language: "your mother wears army boots" that is a challenge to make sincere. There are not a lot of actors who can do that and the audience gets it. The last thing you want is somebody to crack up at that when somebody's saying that with tears running down their face. And I think, probably Moe and Hennie have the worst dialogue and they're the lovers! It's that kind of stuff makes me say, "Wow, good luck, you guys, I'm glad I'm directing." It really is about having to buy into that 100% as an actor. You have to absolutely embrace and take that language as your lover. You cannot comment on it. And I think that's probably going to be one of the bigger challenges.

The relationships are really, really finally wrought, and that's great. I mean, they're really clear. Even when I don't know what the fuck they're saying, they're really clear. And that is really fun for an actor and it allows you to really push it because it is melodrama to a certain extent. And I mean that in the best sense of the word because that used to mean something good. So I think there's so much meat for an actor to chew on that the rest of the stuff that's going to be a challenge is going to be more than worth it.

October 22, 2009