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marked the return of Odets to
Broadway after a six-year hiatus in which he toiled in Hollywood as a screenwriter and motion picture director. The play concerns the disillusionment of a movie star with the Hollywood's studio system and disgust with himself, as he has lost his idealism in the pursuit
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Garfield played major movie star
Charlie Castle, whose idealistic wife Marion has left him. She has warned him not to sign a new contract with studio boss Marcus Hoff, or she will not return to him. Hoff has covered up a fatal hit-and-run committed by Castle, and he threatens Castle with the
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Atkinson summed up Odets' theme seemingly as being "a study of the immorality of success as measured solely by money; and he is showing how the conspiracy of money destroys those who works for it." He wrote "he characters in
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revelation of his secret if he does not sign the contract. Castle signs the contract, but subsequently commits suicide with the knowledge that he can never reclaim his lost idealism that he had sacrificed for success.
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are not worth so much of Mr. Odets' indignation on so cosmic a plane. As in a soundly motivated melodrama, they get what they deserve in the final act. There is no point in crying doom for the entire nation."
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on April 16, 2013, after previews from March 22, and closed on June 2, after 29 previews and 56 performances. Directed by
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for Best
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has had one revival on
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Charlie Castle, Marcus Hoff, Marion Castle, Buddy Bliss, et al.
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on
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