“The tension around Bessie Berger’s dining room table is so close to the boiling point, you can practically see the steam rising.”

“The Bronx dialect — “I can’t take a bite in my mouth no more,” says the exasperated mother, yelling at the grandfather “you gave the dog eat?” — can sound disjointed, coming from the NAATCO group. For all of about thirty seconds, that is. And then a remarkable thing happens: we see the Berger family of the Bronx spring to life before us. At the Public, they do not give us a lovingly-recreated, museum-worthy Depression-era family; the Bergers, here, are an American family wrapped up in Odets’ drama and striving to escape. Mia Katigbak — artistic director and co-founder of NAATCO, who won an Obie for her performance when this production was originally staged in 2013 — is up there delivering the lines of the archetypical Jewish mother, but there is nothing of parody or gimmick. In director Stephen Brown-Fried’s production, the dialogue and the play come vibrantly alive. It’s almost as if Odets’ language awakes and sings.”

““Each character’s desperation is at a different pitch and has to be carefully calibrated by director Stephen Brown-Fried. In a simple, unadorned living room, Odets’ epic war between idealism and reality, which probes the psychological complexities of those on the edge, enjoys a solid revival. “Shake down the coconuts,” Moe urges. This Awake and Sing does just that.””