SOURCE: "Two Communist Plays," in The Commonweal, Vol. XXI, No. 24, 12 April 1935, p. 682.

Vernon finds "Waiting for Lefty" energetically performed but expresses reservations about its political message.

In Awake and Sing, the play of Jewish life in the Bronx, the Group Theatre recently revealed to the New York public a new dramatist of real ability—Clifford Odets. In that play Mr. Odets showed a keen sense of dramatic values and for a young playwright an unusual mastery of theatrical technique; but far more important than these, the ability to visualize and project living men and women by means of significant action, and vivid, realistic, pungent dialogue. The characters of Awake and Sing were entirely Jewish, and Mr. Odets was evidently working in a milieu and in a spirit which he thoroughly understood. That Mr. Odets is a radical, even perhaps a Communist, might have been gathered from the play...