Style

Setting

All of the action of Rocket to the Moon takes place in the waiting room in Ben Stark's dental office. Because of this single location, the focus of the play becomes the dialogue between the characters and their entries and exits from the stage. In the final moments of the play, Stark refers to this room as a prison-office. Mirroring the themes of many of the conversations between the characters, the confines of the single room help invoke the feeling that the characters, and Stark in particular, are trapped in their circumstances.

Imagery

Because the action of the play consists of the interactions between characters and their entrance and exit from Stark's waiting room, almost all of the imagery of the play is embodied in the character's dialogue and is developed through the repetition of thematic elements. The one significant exception to this is the repeated focus on the Hotel Algiers seen through the window of the waiting room. In the first act, Prince tells Stark that he once knew a bookie that used the hotel as an office. The hotel signifies a different type of life and the temptations that Stark overcomes at the close of the play. Another central image in the play is of Cleo as a consumable object. Frenchy refers to her as "Juicy Fruit," for instance, and Cleo tells Wax that "No man can take a bite out of me, like an apple and throw it away."

Genre

Rocket to the Moon is a work of dramatic realism. Its central subject concerns the everyday lives of its protagonists, and the setting and dialogue of the play focus on realistic subjects. The play attempts to reproduce the everyday speech of New Yorkers. The moments when Stark or Prince quote from Shakespeare, for example, contrast sharply with the rest of the dialogue.

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY

• All three acts of the play take place in the same location — the waiting room of Stark's dental practice. Because of this, the forward progress of the play relies heavily on the entrance and exit of characters and on the ways in which they interact in that confined space. How would you direct the end of act 3 when Stark, Prince, and Cleo have their final conversation? How would you pace the character's dialogue and what decisions would you make about their movement both entering and exiting the stage?
• The historical period in which Rocket to the Moon takes place is the Great Depression of the 1930s. This was a period of great social, political, and economic upheaval in the United States. Research the Great Depression after the stock market crash of 1929. What were some of the causes of the crash and the Great Depression that followed? How did the country get out of the Great Depression? What have been some of the lasting effects of governmental policies from the period?
• Clifford Odets was briefly a member of the Communist Party in the early 1930s. Because of his involvement with communism, Odets — like many other prominent American celebrities — had to testify in front of Senator Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Commission in the 1950s. Conduct research into the HUAC hearings and McCarthyism. What other noted celebrities were called to appear in front of the commission? What accounted for the rising fear of communism in America in the 1950s?
• Rocket to the Moon is an example of social realism. Unlike in tragedy, farce, comedy, or romance, the play's dialogue, characters, and events are intended to be as realistic as possible. Explore how Odets manages to produce realistic characters and to deal with common themes through an examination of the dialogue in the play. What aspects of the character's interactions help provide a sense of realism? Do the themes Odets addresses in this play — the function of marriage, economic pressures, artistic aspirations, and others — resonate for readers in the early 2000s? How could you update the play to make it more relevant for an audience now?