L ifestyles /C ulture
Play by ‘Poet of the Philly Streets’ Revived
quintessential American play-
wright was supposed to be” —
“a poet of the Philly streets,” in
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
Shulman’s words.

Shulman, 38, hails from
CLIFFORD ODETS’ DRAMA
Boston, and was convinced to
Awake and Sing, a classic of the
direct the
play by his friend and
American social realist genre
Quintessence art director Alex
that deals with Americanized
Burns. Where
in college his
Jewish immigrants in New
interest in
the play
was buoyed
York in the 1930s, opens at the
by his
desire for
gaining a par-
Quintessence Theater on Jan. 26.

In a cramped Bronx apart- ticular role, he finds now that
ment, three generations of he has a greater appreciation
Bergers try to figure out what for the totality of the play’s
it means to be a Jew and an themes. In 2019, he says, it’s
American, with far-reaching more relevant than ever.

consequences. Awake and Sing, he said, is
For director Max Shulman, about how it feels when “to be dis-
it’s “a kind of dream” to be able illusioned becomes a daily occur-
to bring Awake and Sing to rence, to be shocked to the point
the stage.

of numbness becomes a daily
“When I was an under- occurrence.” “But this play,” he
graduate at Northwestern said, “in many ways, is a call for
Lawence Pressman plays Jacob in Awake and Sing.
University, I thought Odets strength at a time like this, when
hung the moon and the stars,” things cannot get any worse.”
he said. The Philadelphia-born
Shulman, whose family Ellis Island-like characters in is going through an identity
Odets was “everything that a entered the country through the play, finds that Awake and crisis. Who are we in relation-
Sing “really brings to light what it ship to what we always were?”
meant to be a Jew in the period.” Pressman asked.

And it’s not simply a political
Lawrence Pressman, 79,
Whatever your political position today is,
or academic question to him;
playing the role of Jacob, agreed.

you can’t escape the fact that America is going
he remembers
his Jewish immi-
The play is about the “drama
that happens in family units” grant grandparents well, and his
through an identity crisis.”
(which it has in common with grandmother once labored in
LAWRENCE PRESSMAN
“all great dramas,” Pressman the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
said, “in particularly American (though she was gone before its
dramas”), but it’s also about the infamous fire).

Pressman himself is a vet-
perils and complex questions
eran actor, having appeared in
that face new immigrants to
NAME: WWDB AM 860; WIDTH: 3.625 IN;
fare as
diverse as Shaft to Doogie
the United States. The force
DEPTH: 3.62 IN; COLOR: BLACK; AD NUMBER:
Howser, M.D. to American
and honesty with which the
00082699 Pie.

The last
time he was in
play confronts those questions,
Philadelphia was
“at least 40,
Pressman said, are what gives
maybe 50
years ago,”
he said,
it its vitality for the current day.

when he
appeared in
a show at
“Whatever your political
the Playhouse
at the
Park. He
position today is, you can’t
escape the fact that America quite enjoys the “directness that
T H EATER
Photo provided
Philadelphians have,” he said
The lives of Shulman and
Pressman intersect in ways that
stretch across decades. Both
attended Northwestern, where
each discovered Odets and
fell in love. Pressman starred
as Jacob alongside an actor
named Richard Benjamin in a
student production of the play.

Benjamin, as it turns out, hap-
pens to be Shulman’s father-
in-law. What better way for a
family drama to be produced?
“It’s a play that once you
read it, or are exposed to it, it’s
viral,” Pressman said. “It just
goes through your system and
never leaves you.” l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
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JANUARY 17, 2019
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