Awake and Sing! at Olney Theatre Center

Awake and Sing!

Olney Theatre Center
2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd. Olney

Odets’ 1935 play follows the Bergers, a Jewish family from the Bronx trying to make ends meet during the Depression. The family’s matriarch Bessie – one of the most spectacular roles in the American canon – will stop at nothing to keep her family together… even if it means ripping her children’s dreams apart.

Thru - Oct 29, 2014

Price: $38-$63.50

Running Time: 2hrs, 20 mins with1 intermission

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Awake and Sing! Reviews

Average Rating based on 3 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Recommended

"...“Awake!” is bigger and more bumptious, and in director Serge Seiden’s lively production you can feel the walls closing in on this energetic, struggling Jewish clan. Ralph, 21 years old when the play starts, sleeps on a day bed in the living room. His grandfather plays Caruso records in the bedroom behind him. His harried mother, Bessie, tries to command things from wherever she is — maybe the dining room, maybe the living room, poorly separated for privacy by a flimsy curtain."

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- Nelson Pressley

Washingtonian - Highly Recommended

"...Younger audience members—who should check this play out if they like serious drama—may not be aware of how many Americans, particularly children of European immigrants, were attracted to Marxism and Communism in the 1930s. It seemed to many of them during the Depression that capitalism didn’t work any more. The slaughters and other human-rights abuses under Stalin in the Soviet Union weren’t widely understood. Not that Jacob has any fellow travelers in the family, but at least his grandson listens, and in turn, Jacob lends a sympathetic ear to the young Ralph’s woes."

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- Jane Horwitz

DCTheatreScene - Recommended

The stellar casting starts with Naomi Jacobson in a tour de force performance as tough-love matriarch Bessie Berger. The always remarkable Rick Foucheux disappears into his role yet again, this time as the caring patriarch Jacob with the inside scoop on everybody’s business because he’s the listening, caring one.

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- Debbie Jackson

Awake and Sing! at Olney Theatre Center

Awake and Sing!

Awake and Sing! Reviews

Washington Post - Recommended

Washingtonian - Highly Recommended

DCTheatreScene - Recommended

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