Waiting for Lefty

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 City 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.

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. 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" slang for communist). He says his wife convinced him last week to strike for higher wages.

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