waiting for lefty is a 1935 play by the american playwright clifford odets. consisting of a series of related vignettes, the entire play is framed by the meeting of cab drivers who are planning a labor strike. the framing uses the audience as part of the meeting. while this was not odets' first play, this was the first to be produced. it was staged by the group theatre, a new york theatre company founded by harold clurman, cheryl crawford and lee strasberg, of which odets was a member. the company was founded as a training ground for actors, and also to support new plays, especially those that mirrored the social and political climate of the day. waiting for lefty was the first real critical and popular success for the group theatre, appearing on broadway as well as in cities around the united states. it had its british premiere in 1938 at the unity theatre, whose production so impressed a visiting contingent of the american group theatre that unity theatre was given the british rights to the play. ==plot==  the play is composed of seven different vignettes separated by blackouts. as the play opens, several taxi drivers sit in a semicircle. to one side stands a gunman. a large man and union leader, harry fatt, tells the men that a strike is not a good idea. when a man in the crowd mocks this view, fatt calls him a "red" (slang for communist), says he is alert against their presence in the union, and claims that the reds, given the chance, will betray their fellow workers. questions come from the crowd as to the whereabouts of lefty, their elected chairman. fatt reminds them they already have their elected committee present. he lets joe, one of the workers, speak. joe maintains he is not a "red boy", citing his status as a wounded war veteran, and discusses how if a worker expresses dissatisfaction, the union leaders label him a "red". he says his wife convinced him last week to strike for higher wages, an important theme throughout the play. the taxi drivers remain dimly visible on stage as edna joins joe in their home (the scene is supposed to take place a week before the play's first scene). she tells him that their furniture, not yet paid for, was repossessed. they argue: joe claims that strikes do not work, and that they lose money while they are on strike, while she says that while his salary barely covers rent now, soon the owners will push down their wages even more. she says his boss is "making suckers" out of the workers, and out of their families. joe pleads that she will wake the children, but she says she only wants to wake him up. she calls his union "rotten", since they do not tell the workers what their plans are. joe admits that
1935_plays Great_Depression_plays Labor_literature Plays_by_Clifford_Odets Plays_set_in_the_United_States