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NEW YORK -- Chances are that Awake and Sing! wasn't part of your high school English curriculum, and that's too bad. Clifford Odets' 1935 play is every bit as accessible and compelling a study of an American family's struggles as, say, Death of a Salesman.
Then again, as Lincoln Center Theater's searing new production of Awake (*** 1/2 out of four) makes clear, Odets' vision could be more morally complex than Arthur Miller's, and not just in art. The former rose to fame as a writer for the famously progressive, idealistic Group Theatre, but earned infamy later by agreeing to appear as a cooperative witness before the communist-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee.
The burning social conscience and romantic spirit that nonetheless fueled Odets' work are evident throughout Awake, and are vigorously stoked by director Bartlett Sher in this revival, which opened Monday at Broadway's Belasco Theatre. The plot focuses on a Jewish family in the 1930s. Bessie Berger, the matriarch, feels their salva- tion lies in money and the respectability it affords. But for her elderly father, Jacob, an aficionado of Enrico Caruso and Karl Marx, capitalism has had a crushing impact on the freedom and yearning of the individual.
These conflicting views face off in a cramped Bronx apartment also shared by Bessie's eager young son, Ralph, and his frustrated sister, Hennie, whose personal choices don't exactly thrill their mother either. A pair of frequent houseguests contribute to the tension: Bessie's more successful brother, Morty, whose upbeat complacency only makes Bessie's husband, Myron, seem like more of a nebbish; and Hennie's admirer Moe Axelrod, whose crude charisma poses a similar problem for the good-natured immigrant whom Hennie, under pressure from Mom, settles for.
Sher's Awake is duly anchored by Zoe Wanamaker's fierce Bessie and Ben Gazzara's heartbreaking Jacob. But there are a number of equally impressive and affecting performances here, key among them Mark Ruffalo's Moe and Pablo Schreiber's Ralph. The latter actor exudes a boyish intensity and earnestness that burns past the weariness of the older characters, while Ruffalo takes the rumpled, insinuating sensuality that has marked much of his film work and channels it into a sharply nuanced portrait of a flawed but deeply feeling man.
Lauren Ambrose, Jonathan Hadary and Ned Eisenberg offer strong support as the troubled Hennie and her well-meaning father and uncle, while Richard Topol lends an aching sweetness as Sam, Hennie's long-suffering spouse.
You should go to Awake prepared to, like Sam, have your heart deflated before it's lifted. But by all means, do go.
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