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The Flowering Peach
The Flowering Peach
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Author: Clifford Odets Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 89 Pub. Date: 1954 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822204118 ISBN-13: 9780822204114 Cast Size: 4 female, 7 male, 4 animals which may be played by any gender
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About
the Play:
The Flowering Peach is a full-length drama by Clifford
Odets. Based on the Biblical
legend of Noah's Ark, The Flowering Peach comically re-imagines the story of Noah and his family debating the
coming Great Flood – and then struggling to survive it on the ark
they have built. Especially
recommended for school and contest use.
The Flowering Peach, as described by Brooks Atkinson, is:
"the story of mankind living out its destiny under the
benevolent eye of God. There were giants on the earth in those days
of the Deluge. In spirit Noah was the greatest. It is Mr. Odets' mood
not to put him on a pedestal but to characterize him as the worried
head of a family of ordinary individuals – a peevish though loving
hero who feels himself close to God…the story of how Noah persuades
his skeptical family that God has given all of them a mission, how
they bicker, yet do the job obediently, how God helps them solve the
most prodigious problems, how they scamper into the ark when the
rains fall – all this, told with sympathetic humor in the form of a
folk fable, ought to be enough to delight and move any theatregoer.
In the second act the voyager concludes triumphantly with the
grounding of the ark, the flowering of the peach, and the departure
of the family in their several ways to replenish and fructify the
earth. It is a triumphant conclusion, but after a long series of
quarrels and sorrows that symbolize the eternal questioning of God's
children."
The Flowering Peach premiered in 1954 at the Belasco
Theatre on Broadway and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His
last finished play, it was revived at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway
in 1994. While the play
is rarely
performed professionally, it has been performed in middle school,
high school, and community theatre productions.
Cast: 4 female, 7 male, 4 animals which may be played by any
gender
What people say:
"Mr. Odets' play is a
beautiful one. His finest, in fact." — The New York
Times
"…folk poem … a retelling
… of the famous Biblical journey to Ararat … a genuine folk
gaiety, as warm as it is impudent, takes over the stage." —
New York Herald-Tribune
"There are hundreds of
laughs." — New York Journal-American
About the Playwright:
Clifford Odets (1906-1963) was an American playwright,
screenwriter, and actor. Known primarily as one of the great American
playwrights, he also wrote or co-wrote 18 movies for film and
television. He came from an Eastern European, Jewish immigrant
background. Raised in New York City, he became one of the original
acting members of the prestigious The Group Theater, which was
committed to producing realistic, contemporary American plays for
American audiences and it achieved the goal – 20 new American
scripts produced in the Group's 10-year existence.
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Stella Adler, edited by Barry Paris
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