Clifford Odets was given every encouragement to let himself go. Unfortunately he chose to be as little critical of his work as his admirers had been, and the result is simply that his latest play seems like nothing so much as an improbable burlesque of "Awake and Sing." Apparently the idea was that if a play about a somewhat neurotic family in the Bronx was good, then a play about a madhouse similarly located would be very much better. And if this theory is accepted, then "Paradise Lost" … must certainly mark the uttermost reach of the author's genius.

Never in the course of more than a decade of persistent theatergoing have I seen quite so much of madness and woe, or quite such a rich variety of sins, felonies, and other torts, legal and moral, crowded into one evening….

If one knew nothing of the author one might...