by Betty Mohr
Theater Critic,
published August 31, 2007
It didn't fare very well when it was first produced in 1935, and it rarely has been mounted since.
But that may be why "Paradise Lost" is a tantalizing challenge for TimeLine Theatre Company in Chicago.
The more problems with the script the merrier, because it gives TimeLine a chance to show off its spectacular stuff. Indeed, the theater troupe dazzles with this production of Clifford Odets' Depression-era agitprop drama.
Louis Contey's direction is so sharp and the portraits of a family in the throes of struggle and despair so authentic that the production holds us in rapt attention.
The show and its production values stand out all the more because Odets' script is so flawed. It meanders off in many directions; its characters and their relationships are not clearly delineated; its dialogue doesn't match the characters, and it has dots that don't connect.
The story takes place from 1932 to 1935 in New York City. Against a backdrop of unemployment and economic hardship, the Gordon family tries to stay afloat.
The patriarch of the family, Leo (a heartfelt portrayal by Michael Kingston), is the gentle thinker who designs handbags for the company owned by him and his partner, Sam Katz (Brian McCartney.
Leo and his wife, Clara (a charismatic Janet Ulrich Brooks), have three grown children: Ben (Aaron Golden), a runner who won an Olympic medal but doesn't have a clue as to how to make a living for himself and his new wife, Libby (Tien Doman); Pearl (Mechelle Moe), who does nothing but play the piano; and Julie, who has an unexplained disease that will kill him, although we never learn what it is.
In the course of the drama we meet nice guy Gus (an engaging Whit Spurgeon); Kewpie (Jeremy Glickstein), who messes up Ben's marriage; Bertha (Angela Bullard), Sam Katz's long-suffering, abused wife; and Mr. Pike (a fiery portrait by Scott Aiello), who calls everyone "citizen" and espouses revolution.
There is a preachy quality to the play in which everyone is a victim entitled to a living from an uncaring world. Sam embezzled money from the business, which leads to bankruptcy for him and Leo. It's not the crook's fault, though: it is the system that is blamed for the company's downfall.
Mr. Pike delivers the play's anti-war message, ranting about World War I (1914-1918) and screaming about a coming World War II (even though the characters in the play are Jewish and Hitler already has started threatening Jews).
That said, though, as mounted by TimeLine this drama offers an interesting history lesson about the fragility of life and the whirlwind of collectivist thought that swirled around 1930s America.
