Paradise Lost conjures a remembered time when gangsters, dreamers, agitators and idealists were the people who formed the hopeful heart of the American Dream. This rarely produced classic (now part of an Odets renaissance that kicked off with Bartlett Sher’s acclaimed production of Awake and Sing! for Lincoln Center Theater) teems with life, taking us deep into the relationships, passions and dreams of a middle-class family trying to survive the hardscrabble time of the Great Depression. Dámaso Rodriguez, the Associate Artistic Director of Pasadena Playhouse and Co-Artistic Director of the acclaimed Furious Theatre Company, directs a stellar company of actors from Seattle and Los Angeles.
Dámaso Rodriguez: “Urgently relevant and completely of its moment in history when it premiered in 1935, Paradise Lost somehow manages to be a play for our own troubled times. As Odets writes, ‘even backwards is going ahead.’ I think audiences will make an intense connection with his beautifully drawn characters and find comfort in looking back at our Depression-Era selves.”
