GOLDEN BOY is the story of Joe Bonaparte (to be played by Seth Numrich), a young, gifted violinist who is torn between pursuing a career in music and earning big money as a prize fighter. This will be a rare Broadway production for the Odets classic and the second Odets work to be presented by Lincoln Center Theater following its Tony Award winning revival of Awake and Sing!, also directed by Bartlett Sher, in 2006.
The skills [Sher] evinced in that rewarding revival [“Awake and Sing!”] are on view here, too: a knack for making Odets’s vernacular language feel like fresh mint instead of stale corn, and a gift for cutting to the emotional quick of a conventionally structured melodrama…As the young hero, who is determined to make himself over into the kind of man the world reveres, Mr. Numrich (“War Horse”) moves with an antic grace in the play’s early scenes...There is music in the way Mr. Numrich moves that hints at the lyric temperament Joe once felt as a salvation..., and now feels as an inhibiting burden…The process is watched from a distance by his loving father, played with impressive delicacy by a sad-eyed, soft-spoken Tony Shalhoub….Mr. Shalhoub infuses his performance with an elegiac tenderness that never descends into the maudlin….“Golden Boy” is at times dragged down by predictable plot mechanics that obscure the ripped-from-the-gut honesty that glittered more fiercely in earlier Odets plays. Some passages are too bluntly written, tapping out the play’s moral message in telegraphic language that makes you wince….But even the play’s pulpier excesses...are brought home with conviction by the cast.
Back on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre, where it premiered 75 years ago, Clifford Odets’ boxing saga “Golden Boy” is a knockout, thanks to its 24-karat cast. The 19 actors in the Lincoln Center revival are so good that you look beyond creaks in the melodrama. So good they make up for lead-footed scene changes and sets that are too postcard-pristine for the tale of tangled desires.
1937 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1952 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1995 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2012 | Broadway |
Lincoln Center Theater Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2013 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Featured Actor in a Play | Danny Burstein |
2013 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | 0 |
2013 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Set Design | Michael Yeargan |
2013 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Seth Numrich |
2013 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Tony Shalhoub |
2013 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | 0 |
2013 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | Danny Burstein |
2013 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | Tony Shalhoub |
2013 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | 0 |
2013 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Set Design (Play or Musical) | Michael Yeargan |
2013 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Award | Yvonne Strahovski |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Costume Design of a Play | Catherine Zuber |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Play | Bartlett Sher |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Play | Donald Holder |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Danny Burstein |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Tony Shalhoub |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Lincoln Center Theater |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Andre Bishop |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Bernard Gersten |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Golden Boy |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Play | Michael Yeargan |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Sound Design of a Play | Peter John Still |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Sound Design of a Play | Marc Salzberg |
Videos