When Days to Come first appeared on stage in 1936, unionization and the labor movement were still considered by many to be a communist plot and anti-American. In fact, the play’s author Lillian Hellman was brought before the House Committee on Un-American Activities years later. Throughout her life, Hellman didn’t make any bones about her left-wing sympathies. That said, Days to Come, doesn’t always paint a sympathetic portrait of an organizer, or the striking workers, in an Ohio brush factory, nor is it wholly antagonistic toward the factory’s owners. The play is filled with “hard boiled” or “noir” patter from the 1930s. After all, Hellman had a longtime relationship with the master of the detective story, Dashiell Hammett. Here to tell us if we should hit the ticket line or the picket line are Eight Forty-Eights’s dueling critics, Jonathan Abarbanel and Kelly Kleiman.

On Stage:
Days to Come
The Artistic Home
Through Nov. 29