NIGHT-LIFE MAGAZINE REVIEW 1/21/08THEATRE REVIEW:
"Waiting For Lefty"
By
Willy Rogue Donaldson
Here's a legendary play that is as relevant today as when it was first
performed. It drops you into a Union Meeting in 1935, during the Great
Depression, and shows you what really was happening in America. At its
first performance, the audience went wild and applauded for 28 curtain calls.
It's a rousing adventure to come to The New Phoenix and see "Waiting
For Lefty." The less you know the better perhaps, but it helps
to get there a little early. You'll get a better seat and absorb the
flavor of the times and the situation, some of the huge cast are in the
audience. Harmonica by Robb C. Nesbitt, costumes by Kate Palame.
The play starts and Fatt enters, with hi hired gun thug. He is the
current leader of this union, and wants to maintain his own comfortable
position by trying to calm the workers and get them to accept the lower
wages. He has some supporters in the crowd. Lefty is the leader of
the other group trying to get a strike vote, he hasn't arrived yet.
People start to discuss the low wages and what to do, discussion is
heated. Skits in the middle of the meeting show the effects of low wages
on the workers, the breaking up of families, the spying on employees, the
cutbacks to medical care, the discrimination against immigrants, the
difficulty of even getting married. The union members respond to these
scenes with recognition and angry calls for change.
A union guy comes into the meeting and reports on the terrible things
happening in Philadelphia to the workers who tried to strike. The crowd
starts to back away from the idea of a strike. Another guy recognizes
the Philadelphia guy, and exposes him as a double-crossing agent of
management.
Then another event is reported, which stuns the crowd. They all start
talking and yelling, but an older guy named Agate starts telling his story,
and takes over the meeting. Fatt tries to take back control, but Agate
isn't about to let go, he agitates the meeting to overflowing anger and gets
the whole crowd on its feet demanding a strike.
This whole production is an Agitation on the Body Politic, and an
Exaltation of the American Labor Movement. Also an Exultation of
Skylarks for Director Kurt Schneiderman. Who else would have had the
vision and determination to round up such a large excellent cast and rehearse
them to this level of fluidity on a budget of buttercups?! Who else
would parry Free Trade Abuse of workers with the Historical Realism of
"Waiting For Lefty" ?!
He's not the only one deserving praise. Richard Lambert, Executive
Director of the New Phoenix Theatre Company, also acts in this as Joe, a
pivotal figure who is encouraged by his wife Edna and his poverty to go
support a strike. Tom Scahill takes on the silent role of Gunman with a
set jaw and a scurvy eye that chills your spine. Victor Morales makes
Fatt the dominant figure in the room with his posture and voice. Florrie
and Sid, the couple in love separated by poverty are played beautifully by
Sarah Brown and Jeffrey Coyle. Marshall Maxwell as Clancy fingers his
brother eloquently.
But you always like the little guy who goes bananas, and Bill Schmidt takes
the part of Agate Keller and spins it like a whirling dervish with one foot on
fire. He's yelling and spouting and shouting his tale, and by the end of
the play, you can barely hear him over all the other noise, but he's still
sputtering, the one-eyed banshee from industrial hell who's not going to let
you forget or deny his rollrock highroad roaring down. Go Wild, Wild
Bill, Go!
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