The Awakening, based on Gogol's "The Cloak" (or overcoat) is Keaton's only on screen venture into completely straight drama. In this respect it is an interesting work demonstrating his ability to stand on his own without the support of gags as effectively as with them. The expressiveness in his face is real, frustration, torment, suffering, humiliation, injustice and finally determination. A relatively large portion, for a 50's thirty minute television play, is silent giving Buster the opportunity to work in his element, these sequences and his final intense monologue to the Chief are classic Buster. The one distraction I found was Keaton's speech pattern, although his voice works OK for comedy, in something of this nature his lack of breath control is noticeably jarring. There are breaks in the flow of his lines through lack of breath, gasping for air mid sentence and speaking over the natural breathing places in the script. Technical, yes, but necessary in this type of production. 

Keaton's character is ordinary, unpopular and living in a world of catalogue numbers which he reels off at every given opportunity. Buster makes him dull and uninteresting until his verbal, and soon to be physical, attack on the Chief near the end. Here Buster delivers an intense, passionate speech worthy of any dramatic actor that, with a sudden twist of emotion, turns to quiet internal panic at the realization he has shot the Chief… "What have I done? What have I done?" 

There are similarities in the cultural setting and all encompassing dictatorship of a government to Orwell's "1984"

Morning, an elderly, shabbily dressed landlady opens the front door of her rooming house to fetch the milk, she looks up at one of her tenant's (Buster) window in annoyance, his curtains are still closed. As she turns to go back inside she is halted by a voice coming from loud speakers set at intervals along the street. 

"Attention! Attention! Attention! This is the State Diffusion Service. We remind you all state entertainment programmes will be interrupted at one o'clock today. The Chief will speak to his people…"

The landlady comforted by what she has heard continues with her mission. She returns inside and marches up the stairs to Buster's room where she knocks on his door shouting demands to be let in. He unlocks the door, a guilty look on his face as he invited her into his darkened room. She walks straight to his desk and touches the shade of the lamp which, not unexpectedly, she finds still hot from use. The landlady opens his curtains to let the sunlight in while complaining he uses too much electricity and it is very expensive for her, his rent doesn't meet the cost. Buster removes a small cash box from under his mattress and gives the landlady one of the two coins inside, she is content with this and her conversation takes on a milder, but still scolding tone. She wouldn't mind if he were doing something important instead of playing silly games. Buster says his work for the Bureau of Records is important, he won't hear a word against the regime or the Chief. The landlady tells him it is him she is thinking about, working night after night, never socializing. He should be out with a frivolous young lady or smoking his pipe with the men. Buster replies that he is not very popular and there is a lot of memorizing and work involved with his job.

"There are 400,000 classifications and serial numbers to remember, one case was so interesting it kept me up half the night…" They continue their conversation as they go downstairs together. 

A young girl comes in through the front door complaining how cold it is out, Buster looks longingly at her completely losing his train of thought. The Landlady prompts him to proceed with his story, he does, distractedly, as he continues to be mesmerized by the girl who by now has begun making a phone call on the communal hall phone. Buster complains incredulously how nine out of ten employees in his department wanted to give the classification number 7935-M to the case of a woman who wanted serum for her sick children. "Everyone knows it should be 78362-J not M." As he is talking he puts on his overcoat, a shabby affair with torn seams The girl on the phone starts laughing at him, telling her friend how funny he looks in his old coat, "like a torn teddy bear." Buster is visibly hurt by her mockery, the landlady remarks on the rudeness of some people but perhaps he ought to visit his tailor during his lunch hour as the coat did need mending. 

It is lunchtime and Buster arrives at his tailors. He is greeted by the tailor's wife who tells him the tailor is out delivering a coat but he can wait. It is one O'clock, Buster realizes with horror the tailor's wife doesn't have her radio on to hear the Chief's speech. He tells her. In a state of near panic that she may have missed some of the speech she hurriedly turns on the radio. 

"Each of you are in my thoughts" begins the Chief in a lulling, condescending voice. The speech drones on, Buster falls asleep to be woken by the tailor as the Chief utters his final words.

"What is it you want?" asks the tailor, "You haven't come here just to sleep." Buster shows the tailor his coat.

"Fix this, I'll pick it up at 7:00." The tailor hardly needs to look at it, he tells Buster it can not be mended anymore but "should be cut up for shoe laces. Why don't you get a new one?" Buster asks him how much it will cost. "Two hundred" replies the tailor. He cannot afford that he tells the tailor who resourcefully thinks of several ways Buster can save the money to pay for one. 

"Do not send your clothes out to be cleaned, but a box of soap powder and do it yourself. Cut out two or three meals a week, instead of taking the bus or the trolley, walk to work. How much rent do you pay your landlord?"

"Landlady. Eight."

"Then ask for a rent cut"

"I don't think she would allow that, she says I use too much electricity already."

"Let her take the lights out."

Buster finally agrees to the new coat, a coat made from the finest material with cord frogs and a fur collar. By following the tailor's advice Buster manages to save enough money to pay for the coat by the time it is ready three months later. The tailor brings the finished coat over to Buster's room where he unwraps it from its paper packaging with great ceremony. Buster puts the overcoat on proudly, the tailor calls the young girl in to see how fine Buster looks. She is amazed.

"I can't believe it. Changes him completely. He's handsome!" 

Buster puffs up like a Peacock.

The scene opens in Buster's office. A crowd of fellow workers have gathered around Buster and are admiring the new overcoat. "Wonderful!" "Ten years younger.", "Incredible!" The group is breaks up when their boss walks in to find out what the commotion is about and why the men are not at their desks. He tells them as they have nothing better to do there must be too many of them for the work, maybe we need a few less. Buster tells him it is his fault, the boss doesn't recognize him in his new coat until Buster tells him he works there too. "You!" the boss shouts disdainfully.

After work Buster is walking along a street, he looks at his watch and then admires his reflection in a shop window, he hears the girl's voice in his mind saying how handsome he is. At that moment he is aware of the reflection of a man standing behind him with a gun, Buster turns and offers him his watch but it is the coat he wants. The thief strokes the collar, Buster in horror turns to run away but he is clubbed down with the gun butt before he can do any more than turn. 

Buster is next seen at the Department of Investigation reporting the theft of his coat. He is very upset when the clerk dismisses his treasured garment as nothing but an overcoat. Buster asks him what he is going to do about getting the coat back. The clerk tells him, in a voice that hints he has repeated the words countless times before that his report will be properly filed and duly processed and then be passed onto the Department of Records for classification. Buster interrupts him 

"it will be 6397-T," the clerk asks him how he knows to which Buster replies,

"I work there. I want my overcoat. I protest."

The clerk asks if he heard him say he protested. Buster repeats that he protests, the clerk presses a buzzer summonsing two policemen. They arrest Buster for his protestation. 

Back at work, after his release from prison, Buster can no longer concentrate on the job in hand. The boss come out of his office waving some papers at Buster telling him he has given another case the wrong number, 35904-T. The only reason he was taken back after his release from jail, he continues, was because of his expertise. What was the matter? The overcoat? Then perhaps Buster would like to go back to jail where it is nice and warm. Buster is left alone in his despair.

"Will nobody help me? Don't nobody care?" His eye catches a photo of the Chief with the slogan "He cares" written on it. Buster decides to write to the Chief and tell him about his loss and the difficulties he has encountered with the authorities.

Buster is summonsed to the palace. The Chief is giving one of his moral boosting speeches to the people and has decided it would be good for them to hear how much he cares. He proudly tells them what he has done for someone as unimportant as Buster. He stands behind a podium high on a stage surrounded by guards a microphone hanging in front of him.

"And so citizen," he begins, addressing Buster "when your pathetic letter was brought to my attention, when I saw to my horror all you had suffered trying to recover your overcoat, it brought tears of shame to my eyes." 

Buster stands alone in front of the stage listening, waiting to hear the news that his coat has been found. The Chief continues to tell the populace how much he cares and asks what can be done for this simple man? He tells them he has dismissed the officials in charge of each of the departments Buster had to deal with and stripped them of all power. Buster is perplexed 

"My overcoat?" He asks. 

"See," says the Chief "did you hear that man?" It has sounded as if Buster responded to being given back his overcoat. Buster tries again 

"What about my overcoat?" The Chief tells him he will notice a difference in the attitude of the new department heads when her puts in his claim again. Buster looks horrified.

"You mean to the Department of Investigation, the Department of Special Reports, the Department of Emergency Welfare, the Department of Re-examination, the Department of Evaluation? You can keep dismissing them and replacing them but it won't get my coat back. When I protest I'll be sent to prison again" Buster becomes more and more passionate comparing the regime to a machine that reduces a hungry child to a number, 26583-Y, no one can care because they have forgotten how, the machine has taken their souls. The Chief calls for the guards to arrest Buster, they crowd round him as he continues his heretical onslaught on the regime. They fighting to subdue him guns in hand. Buster manages to take a gun from one of the guards, they back off. Buster points it at the Chief, 

"It is not fair. It is a machine. A broken heart reduced to a number in a catalogue. When you say you care, you lie. It is this machine that has taken our souls, so let the machine die with you." 

Buster fires repeatedly at the Chief. He stops, realization dawns on him.

"What have I done? What have I done?"

He is suddenly aware of the tailor's hand shaking him awake. It has been a dream? The tailor asks Buster what he wants, he can't have come just to sleep. Buster hands the tailor his coat and says 

"Fix this, I'll pick it up at 7:00". The tailor replies with the same dialogue he had previously "... cut it up for shoelaces." Buster tests him. 

"What would a new coat cost?" 

"Two hundred", Buster silently mouths the tailor's reply before picking up the dialogue,

"With cord frogs?" 

"Yes, and maybe a fur collar."

"No, no, no," responds Buster, "it wasn't a dream, it was a vision of what would happen if you made me the coat."

"What are you jabbering about?" asks the tailor disdainfully. Buster tells him how the coat will be stolen and he will be arrested. He will discover how rotten the regime is, what a farce everything is. Get thrown into prison - go to the palace and I'd... Buster exits. 

The tailor goes about his business silently for a while, Buster returns to the shop full of purpose and with a determined expression on his face, he marches up to the framed photo of the Chief on the tailors wall, looks the chief defiantly in the eyes and says turning to the tailor 

"Make the coat.".