Clifford Odets has taken a very small and very familiar situation ["The Country Girl"] and, by the simple process of being patient with it, found it to contain more dramatic interest than anyone could have supposed. His story is that of the actor who has drunk himself downhill and of the wife of the director who pulls him back into shape for a performance. The trouble with clichés is that people treat them as clichés; they slap them onto a stage in their baldest outlines, without taking the trouble to think them through again. Odets has thought this one through, down to the last detail, and it comes out with the reality it must have had the first time someone used it. He has been particularly successful with his actor: the man's moral weakness, superimposed aggressiveness, and natural talent are blended in a dimensional character which is not at all attractive, but is commanding because it is true. (pp. 196-97)
The play is well balanced: passages of quiet, careful motivation are followed by inevitable and satisfying flareups; nothing is tacked on; everything moves with easy confidence. (p. 197)
Walter Kerr, in a review of "The Country Girl," in Commonweal (copyright © 1950 Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.; reprinted by permission of Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.), Vol. LIII, No. 8, December 1, 1950, pp. 196-97.
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