Playwright: Clifford Odets
Where: TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington
Phone: 773-281-8463; $25-$30
Runs through: Oct. 21
By Catey Sullivan
With Paradise Lost, TimeLine Theatre brings some of the best ensemble acting in the city to the service of a play that's more agit-prop than entertainment-driven drama. With its usual, meticulous attention to period detail both in Karen Hoffman's set and Alex Wren Meadow's costumes, TimeLine immerses the audience in the world of the Great Depression, paving the way for Odets's passionate soliloquies on the plight of the working man and the death of idealism.
The Eden of the title is the middle class of the United States, a vast demographic represented here by the family of Leo Gordon ( Michael Kingston ) and the various friends, neighbors and business partners who come in and out of his home to discuss labor rights, family matters and the state of the world filled with war-mongering 'Yankee Doodle bastards.' Odets uses his characters more to make his political points than to further the plot; several speechifying types show up briefly and then are never seen again, leaving a thread of a subplot dangling. Each member of Gordon's family represents an iconic element of the middle class, something that works well if it's didacticism you're going after but not so well if your aim is a full, flesh-and-blood storyline.
Even so, the cast here—directed with great intelligence and heart by Louis Contey—is so good that it's easy to over look the fact that for Odets has created a piece that's propagandist teaching tool first and entertainment second.
Janet Ulrich Brooks provides a no-nonsense, paradoxically tender and tough foundation as Clara Gordon, an icon of the All-American work ethic in a faded housedress and sensible shoes. As Leo, the patriarch of the Gordon clan, Michael Kingston is solid as a decent individual beset by forces that could overwhelm and beat down an army of decent men and against which Leo doesn't have a chance.
The Biblical allusion of the title is echoed throughout 'Paradise Lost' in gorgeous yet unpretentious everyday poetry. Explaining why they've just eloped, the dashing but troubled Ben Gordon and his 'juicy marshmallow body' of a wife explain that they didn't want to wait because 'the world is at our doorstep.' It's a haunting riff on Adam and Eve before the fall, when 'all the world was before them.' Yet amid their idealism—indeed, perhaps because of it—the Gordons are a doomed family. Faced with a choice of business survival or personal integrity, Leo Gordon remains steadfast in his morality, all the way to the eviction of his family from their home and the auction of all their personal possessions.
Literally looming above the Gordons throughout Paradise Lost is the shadow of a grand piano. The instrument is the heart and soul of Pearl Gordon's ( Mechelle Moe ) fragile life, a glorious obsession that reverberates ( thanks to wonderful sound design by Andrew Hansen ) throughout the production. When the music dies, you can all but hear Odets offering a requiem for the American Dream.