Sunday, October 31, 2010

Tobacco Road

People loved to hate this play about Georgia sharecroppers.
‘White Trash’ On View Again In Hanna Play 
Turnip-Eating Jeeter Lester and His Forlorn Family Are Still Living by ‘Tobacco Road’ by Charles Schneider, The Cleveland Press 
"As truth - either highly localized or universal - I don’t consider ‘Tobacco Road’ worth it’s weight in last winter’s turnips. But as a theatrical sensation, it is just the stuff."
Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote: "The theatre has never sheltered a fouler or more degenerate parcel of folks than the hardscrabble family of Lester. Plays as clumsy and rudderless as 'Tobacco Road' seldom include so many scattered items that leave such a vivid impression." 

Though this play adaptation of the novel by Erskine Caldwell was banned in cities such as Chicago and Detroit, touring productions found a comfortable home in Cleveland several times over.

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