From Book News, Inc.
Begins a reference series on figures in 20th-century American drama that will include exhaustive annotated bibliographies, biograpihcal overviews, play synopses and critical receptions, and production histories and credits. The first volume highlights Odets (1906-1963), who was influential during the 1930's in the shift from melodrama to modern realism. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Review
Demastes has produced a quick, easy guide to an extensive amount of published material on Clifford Odets, an individual many regard as the most important playwright of the 1930s. This reference guide is the first in a proposed series from Greenwood Press. If the rest of the series is as well constructed as this volume, researchers and students will save a great deal of time and effort in locating research material. Demastes provides a fairly complete bibliography, a short biographical sketch, play synopses and critical overviews of Odets's dramatic work, production histories, and credits, as well as unpublished archival material and lists of texts/anthologies that have published material by Odets. The year-by-year annotated secondary bibliography is divided into two major sections: "Reviews" and "Articles, Chapters, Sections." A third titled "Book-Length Studies" appears when appropriate. Although carefully constructed, the review section misses the 1984 revival of Awake and Sing, a production that received a critical drubbing by the press. Nonetheless, this book is recommended for upper-division undergraduate libraries, major research universities, and public libraries with large theater holdings in their collections.Choice

Book Description
Best known for political plays of the 1930s like Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing!, Odets created rich and varied drama well into the 1950s. That his plays continue to be appraised and performed is clearly evident in this detailed and carefully articulated sourcebook. A near-exhaustive resource for both literary and theatrical research materials on Odets' dramatic career, the volume includes a biographical essay; critical overview, production history, and plot summary of each dramatic product; annotated primary and secondary bibliographies and information on archival sources; and production credits.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Best known for political plays of the 1930s like Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing!, Odets created rich and varied drama well into the 1950s. That his plays continue to be appraised and performed is clearly evident in this detailed and carefully articulated sourcebook. A near-exhaustive resource for both literary and theatrical research materials on Odets' dramatic career, the volume includes a biographical essay; critical overview, production history, and plot summary of each dramatic product; annotated primary and secondary bibliographies and information on archival sources; and production credits.

FROM THE CRITICS

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