Theatre - The Big Knife - Roundabout Theatre

Clifford Odet's 1948 The Big Knife takes a big slice out of old Hollywood.  A movie star needs to decide if the studio will own him or if he will own himself.  The lyrical idealist who wrote Awake and Sing is now bitter with the money he has taken from the movies, takes out a big knife, and tries to cut out his own liver.  It's not a pretty play, but it's a good one.  This production, directed by Doug Hughes, has a number of actors who can combine the ability to be vulnerable to their dying careers and their dying souls while singing Odets's theatrical 1940s vernacular.