Age recommendation: The play deals with the harsh economic realities of the Great Depression, and its effects on the family. It will be best enjoyed with some preparation on the Great Depression and America in the 1930s.

Please note: Children under 6 are not admitted to plays or other events.

e-Luminations: Playwright Clifford Odets
Click here to read an excerpt from Illuminations, OSF's 64-page guide to the plays.

Listen to actor Michael J. Hume's podcast discussion of Paradise Lost.

Audio and Video:
More thoughts on Paradise Lost (10:36) - Director Libby Appel
Clifford Odets and the Group Theatre (5:55) - Dramaturg Judith Rosen
OSF Ensemble and Themes of the Play (3:44) - Director Libby Appel
Comparisons to Chekhov (4:46) - Director Libby Appel

Synopsis: Paradise Lost opens on Armistice Day in the home of Clara and Leo Gordon. The Gordons have three talented children, a house and a business—their own small piece of the American Dream. But there’s trouble in paradise. It’s 1932, the depths of the Depression. A bank crash has wiped out the family savings, and Leo has mortgaged the house to keep the handbag factory going. Neither the Gordons’ daughter nor her fiancé can find work, and they break off their engagement. The younger son, Julie, is dying. And while Ben, the older boy, has just married, his prospects look shaky as well.

Other troubles arise when a delegation of factory workers visits to demand better treatment. Leo’s business partner, Sam, is unmoved, but Leo is shocked and shamed by the conditions they describe. He vows to wake from the dream he’s been living and put abstract ideals into action. Yet the scene ends with Leo alone and still, lost in his thoughts once again.

Eighteen months later, everything has gone downhill. Business is worse; Julie is worse; Ben finds out his friend, Kewpie, a small-time gangster, is having an affair with his wife. Angry but desperate for money, Ben agrees to do a dangerous job for Kewpie.

Meanwhile, Sam introduces a stranger who offers to burn down their factory for the insurance money. Leo throws the man out, a move that will doom both the business and his family.

A year later, the house has been lost and the family’s furniture is out on the street. Ben is dead, having deliberately drawn police fire while working for Kewpie. Kewpie tries to give the family money, but Leo offers it instead to two homeless men. One furiously refuses the money. Leo must wake up from his dream world and see life as it is, the man says. America isn’t fair and it isn’t just, and Leo needs the money more than he does. Shaken, Leo admits the man is right. Yet he will not give up hope. Now that he recognizes the social ills around him—as well as the bond he shares with the homeless men he just patronized—he can build his life on a new foundation. As Clara moves to join him, he vows he will fight to make the ideal world he dreamed of real.—Judith Rosen