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BUFFALO NEWS PREVIEW
1/11/08
Theater preview: 'Waiting for Lefty' from
Subversive Theatre
‘Waiting for Lefty’ delivers message of inspiration
BY COLIN DABKOWSKI News Arts Writer
Updated: 01/11/08 8:08 AM
Most everyone remembers their very first eye-opening artistic experience.
For some, it was reading “Huckleberry Finn” in the ninth grade,
for others, discovering oneself in the pages of Jack Kerouac or the music of
the Beatles.
For Kurt Schneiderman, founder and director of Buffalo’s Subversive
Theatre Collective, it happened one afternoon when he was 14.
“I was a student at Studio Arena Theatre School, and my brother told
me, ‘You ought to read ‘Waiting for Lefty,’ ” Schneiderman said. “They
had just finished the subway system in Buffalo, so I took the subway from
Studio down to the public library and sat down and read ‘Waiting for
Lefty’ in the library. As soon as I finished it, I was like, this is it.
This is what I want to do. I want to do plays like this. I want to get stuff
like this produced — plays about fighting back, inspiring people to stand up
for themselves.”
Now, some 20 years later, after producing, directing or serving as lighting
designer for dozens of such plays, Schneiderman is finally taking a crack at
the one that started it all. It opens tonight in the New Phoenix Theatre.
“I consider it basically the urtext of American political theater,”
Schneiderman said of the play.
Written by Clifford Odets in 1934, “Waiting for Lefty” follows a
union of New York City taxi drivers that is considering a strike. When it was
produced by New York City’s famous Group Theatre, the show got a record of
28 curtain calls. Members of the longshoremen’s union who were in attendance
were so moved by the performance that they instantly went on strike, with no
specific demands, Schneiderman said.
This production features a cast of more than 25, featuring New Phoenix
artistic director Richard Lambert in the role of Joe, an unlikely union
advocate, and Victor Morales as Harry Fatt, a character whose irascible
line-towing nature provides much of the play’s symbolic conflict. Many of
the actors agreed to be part of the production for free or very little, said
Lambert, whose theater is often unable to produce such large shows.
Concerns about the play holding up factored into the decision to mount this
huge production, but Schneiderman pointed out that while some major issues are
vastly different (unions were illegal until 1933), other segments of the show
are frighteningly modern. The New York City taxi cab union went on strike in
September, and conversations in the play about health care for the uninsured
could have come straight from Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” Schneiderman
said.
And it’s hard to see the play’s powerful message ever losing its
relevance or necessity.
“It comes from a time before there were any labor laws, any workplace
discrimination laws. If someone was screwing you over, there was no illusion
that somebody else was going to come in and fix the problem for you,”
Schneiderman said. “The play is filled with people who seem graphically
aware that if anybody’s going to make things right, it’s up to them to do
it themselves.”•
PREVIEW
WHAT: “Waiting for Lefty”
WHEN: Tonight through Feb. 2
WHERE: New Phoenix Theatre, 95 N. Johnson Park
TICKETS: $20, $15 for students and seniors
INFO: 853-1334 or www.subversivetheatre.org
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