The Cradle Will Rock

The Cradle Will Rock is a spectacular dramatic composition that is based on events that took place in the post-Depression period of New York in 1936. The show had an amazing composition and it included the involvement of numerous people, many different cultures and traditions and a lot of different places (Robbins & Theresa, 1999). The show had a unique and exemplary touch to it which mainly focused on the battles of corporate and radicals, arts and politics. Therefore, it could be said that Tim Robbins, an uber-liberalist, was truly justified in directing the show. And it would have been very difficult for any other person to fit in his shoes (Robbins & Theresa, 1999).

On a whole, the Cradle Will Rock is cinematically equal to a protest. It gives as an idea of what shady politics is all about. But, an in-depth look at the extravaganza shows us that it has a much deeper meaning to it. It focuses on countless interesting and intriguing plots and sub-plots and takes into account every person's point of view. The show does however, have its drawbacks. For example, the show has been accused of portraying acts of communism (Pepper, n.d.). Other than that, it distinctly covers on the many different “isms,” namely Communism, capitalism, fascism, Nazism, Judaism, Catholicism etc.

Therefore, in order to fully understand what the show is all about, one must not only possess a certain amount of knowledge of the events and people, but should also have an interest in the current proceedings (Pepper, n.d.). The show got negative reviews also because people were confused and perplexed to see characters like Diego Riviera and Margheretta Sarfatti within the story. This show is mainly about the deep passion and spirit for art and music. The personalities mentioned above had some sort of connection to each other and they also had a strong passion for their work (Kearney, 2000).

An interesting element noted in the show is that almost all the characters are originally based on the real people. Tim Robbins has arranged an impressive cast that takes care of all the roles very convincingly and delivers tremendous performances. Arguably within these, one of the hardest to portray and act was Orsen Welles (Kearney, 2000). As it's a fact that a 21 year old from the 30's looked a lot older than the one in the present it is understood that no one preferred to see Casper Van Dien in that role.

Therefore, the decision to give this role to Angus McFayden was a good one as he successfully portrayed Welles as a self-centred, egotistic man. Susan Sarandon is also very impressive with the role of a Jewish Fascist dealer in arts. She has portrayed the character with some perfection and she perfectly knows what she is doing. The scenes she has portrayed are some of the best in the show (Pepper, n.d.). Other prominent names of actors in the show are John Cusack and Cary Elwes' role of a ...