[The theme of Clash by Night] is eternal, its plot the classic formula of the drame passionel. Yet so vibrant, so steeped in life and passion are Mr. Odets' characters that the world he creates with them exists as solidly, more solidly indeed, than most of the aspects of the world in which we live. Mr. Odets' story is negligible. He is concerned with a quite ordinary couple living on a Staten Island water-front…. Of these everyday ingredients Odets has fashioned a poignant picture of man's loneliness, of his yearnings and frustrations, of mischievous evil, of sorrow, ungainliness, love and death. (pp. 150-51)
The first half of the play offers by far the richest material for actors and audience alike. It is warm with life and with the irrelevant and mysterious action of human beings living on this 'darkling plain'. The scene on the porch of the Wilenski's house on a hot summer night where time and the stars are suddenly close at hand; the scene in the frowzy dance hall; certain haunting moments of search and revelation throughout the play show Odets at his best. If the last half is occasionally labored and repetitious, if, taken as a whole, the play has not the completeness of, let us say, Awake and Sing or Golden Boy, it yet proves that Odets has by no means lost his power or his poetry and that he is as creative as ever when it comes to giving form and substance to character and thought. (p. 152)
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Read the rest of this Criticism with our Odets, Clifford 1906–1963: Critical Essay by Rosamond Gilder Access Pass.
