Review Roundup: WAITING FOR LEFTY Opens at Classic Stage Company

Clifford Odets' WAITING FOR LEFTY officially opens tonight, November 2, at Classic Stage Company's Lynn F. Angelson Theater. The production marks the directorial debut of actor Steven Pasquale and has already been extended through November 29. Read the reviews below!

First performed in 1935, Waiting for Lefty follows a group of New York City taxi drivers during the Great Depression as they gather for a union meeting and confront the possibility of a strike. With their livelihoods at stake and tensions mounting, the workers must decide whether to take collective action.

Pasquale's staging incorporates original music and arrangements by Yeller Tooth and choreography by Susan Misner, bringing music and movement into Odets' examination of labor, economic inequality, and solidarity.

The cast features Tony Award nominee Tala Ashe, Raffi Barsoumian, Austin Durant, Greg Hildreth, Adam Kantor, Doireann Mac Mahon, Zach McNally, Sahar Milani, Cameron Scoggins, and Henry Stram.

The production recently announced a one-week extension, with performances now continuing through Sunday, November 29. As part of the extension, all tickets for the Wednesday, November 25, 2 p.m. matinee are priced at $66, including fees.

Sara Holdren, Vulture : Just when you think Classic Stage Company’s revival of Clifford Odets’s 1932 play Waiting for Lefty might be an endeavor more well-meaning than elegant, something clicks. A rhythm takes hold, a communal sense of purpose and shared pulse of breath drop in, and the rest of the production’s brief yet weighty 75 minutes is often very beautiful. Steven Pasquale, prolific and robust as an actor and here directing for the first time, has put his finger on something in turning Odets’s agitprop one-act, often referenced but seldom performed, into a kind of workers’ dream ballet. The show — which puts its audience in the middle of a New York cab drivers’ union meeting as they debate whether to strike — is already a series of vignettes, Stanislavskian in tone, Brechtian in purpose. Weaving in new music (and new settings of old tunes) written by the folk duo Yeller Tooth and lambent, increasingly gripping choreography by Susan Misner, Pasquale and his ensemble refashion Lefty as a mournful yet determined open mic, a review and a revue of the movement.

Thom Geier, Culture Sauce: This revival captures both the spirit of its time while offering an urgent warning to modern audiences. We must stop complaining and waiting on an outside rescuer who may never arrive, Odets seems to say from a near-century ago. We must lift our own voices, and our own feet, to forge our own destinies.

Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely: Another seemingly eternal specter, capitalism, is getting a downtown whacking courtesy of Classic Stage Company’s revival of Waiting for Lefty. Clifford Odets’ episodic, pro-union drama from 1935 still has plenty of potency even if Steven Pasquale’s staging struggles to maintain momentum. It’s hardly his fault: each vignette amounts to “The Man = bad” and, true as that is, it grows tedious even with a top-notch cast that includes Tala Ashe, Raffi Barsoumian and Adam Kantor.

Gillian Russo, New York Theatre Guide: Lefty's message is timeless but fairly basic — poverty and greedy bosses bad, living wage good — but Odets excels by resisting the instinct to turn a collective into a monolith, instead thoughtfully fleshing out the varied individuals and perspectives that make up the working class. In a way, Pasquale's patchwork production does the same. But neither a movement nor a show can be truly successful if it's not fundamentally united.

Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review: Pasquale’s attempt to expand Waiting for Lefty is well intentioned, of course, but proves to be a fatal experiment. Dressing up Odets’ work with songs and dances takes a drama that should appear spontaneous and makes it instead look terribly studied.

Roma Torre, New York Stage Review: Still, the revival hits home with the disheartening realization that inequality has returned in record levels. Pasquale makes the point with handouts to the audience providing statistics illustrating the disparities between the haves and havenots in this country. My handout states the average American worker salary is $58,260 and we have now seen the planet’s first trillionaire. It asks how long would the average American worker need to work to approach trillionaire status. The shocking answer: 17,241,379 years. As Communism, Socialism and Fascism are back in the political debate, Odets’ Lefty doesn’t seem all that old after all.

Zachary Stewart, TheaterMania: Sadly, the tepid revival at Classic Stage Company is unlikely to prompt a general strike. The most it may inspire is attendance at a No Kings rally—but only after brunch.

Average Rating: 61.4%