`Waiting For Lefty' Loses It Rally Cry

----------------------------------------------------------------- Theater review

"Waiting for Lefty" by Clifford Odets, directed by Shawn Belyea. One World Theatre at AHA! Theatre, 2222 Second Ave. Thursday-Sunday through Feb. 4. 728-1375. -----------------------------------------------------------------

When introduced at a pro-labor benefit in 1935, "Waiting for Lefty" was a shot across the barricades that rocked the New York theater world. What the play signifies in 1996 is less certain, as One World Theatre's current fringe production exemplifies.

A proletarian manifesto about taxi strikers that bristled with the radical idealism of its age, the vigorous one-act introduced playwright Clifford Odets to the world with a bang. It also boosted the Group Theatre, a New York ensemble dedicated to revolutionizing the Broadway stage.

Soon after its wildly successful debut, the Group took "Waiting for Lefty" to Broadway and dozens more productions appeared around the country. And an American theater that reflected and endorsed the aspirations of the working masses seemed plausible.

Firmly rooted in the Depression era that shaped it, "Waiting for Lefty" is a tough work to revive. Its pro-Marxist and pacifist stance now seems ultra naive, in lieu of World War II and the collapse of Russian communism. And its Us vs. Them gusto foregoes ideological "balance."

But the play isn't entirely retro. As recent events at Boeing and elsewhere attest, workers still feel oppressed and strikes still erupt.

One World avoids the common error of doing the play "straight," ignoring its datedness. But Shawn Belyea's post-idealism interpretation at AHA! Theatre is fraught with so much irony and mistrust of the polemics, it conjures little sympathy for anyone - not the greedy bosses and corrupt union leaders, nor the abused cabbies.

"Lefty" is set at a contentious union meeting, with a strike vote on the agenda. As the ill-paid cabbies vent their rage, and the slimy union boss Fatt (Ben DiGregario) tries to stifle them, radicalizing episodes from individual lives are enacted.

The impoverished Miller (Bill Drew) is taunted into action by his feisty wife Edna (Jon Milazzo). A young doctor (K Brian Neel) is fired by a hospital because he's a Jew. Sid (Brad Cook) ditches his girlfriend, Florie (Laura Richman), because he's too broke to marry her.

These vignettes are approached melodramatically, but also mockingly. The actors, of varying ability, wear an odd array of duds - from '90s black leather to '30s frocks.

Eruptions of mordant choral singing and loud percussion (arranged by Derek Horton) and angry ensemble murmurings instill a dark, Brechtian hubbub. And a satire of "This Old Man" is performed as a lascivious bump-and-grind.

If the goal was to turn Odets' sincere polemic on its ear, and to contrast the cynical mood of our current body politic with gung-ho '30s idealism, that's achieved.

But when the cabbies quietly, sarcastically call for a strike, you wonder if this "Waiting for Lefty" is more about '90s nihilistic chic than serious revision. In 1935, the audience responded by chanting "Strike! Strike!" in solidarity with the actors. At AHA!, the evening ends not with a bang, but a caustic, snarling whimper.