A Genius in the Strings Section and in the Ring

This blog has been really negative of late.  I assure you, I don't dislike everything.  For one, Clifford Odets's Golden Boy is an amazing theatrical experience.  

The plot itself is vaguely contrived: the play centers on Joe Bonaparte who faces the choice between becoming a musician and the lure of big money and the distinct possibility of injuring his hands as a boxer. For context, Joe's Italian immigrant father shells out $1200 for a violin for is son's 21st birthday. The play takes place in the late 1930s.  But it never feels that way, which I think is a testament to the dramaturgical abilities of Odets.  The play, which clocks in at about three hours, never feels that way.  It moves and it avoids becoming preachy.  The characters do not engage in protracted conversations about the state of man or about beliefs, which could easily happen in a show whose characters include a philosophizing candy store owner, the kind of father who would shell out $1200 for a violin for his son's 21st birthday, a union organizer older brother, and a Newark native woman whose father drank and beat her mother into suicide.  Magically, the show does not preach.  I actually bought the script I thought it was so good.

Thematically, the play is about finding your passion or what complete's you.  For Joe's manager, that's Lorna.  For Joe's union organizing older brother, it's workplace justice.  For Lorna and Joe, it's up in the air.  Lorna loves Tom Moody, Joe's manager, because they have a peaceful, quiet relationship; but she also loves Joe and tries really hard to convince herself of the contrary.  Joe's internal conflict - music, which makes him feel human and empowered, versus boxing, which is a faster if more violent route to empowerment - is the central plot of the play.  Do you spend your life trying to shine in Capitalist America where you're judged by the dollars in your bank account, or do you fulfill a more satisfying, more humane though humbler destiny?  “Truthful success,” in the words of Joe's father, remains as elusive a goal today as it did when “Golden Boy” first opened on Broadway at the same theater 75 years ago.  

In the new production, Odet's language feels fresh and not at all dated and the powerhouse cast make sure the verbal punches sting as much as the physical ones.  The play is fantastically acted.  Seth Numrich's energy never falters, but it evolves in a fascinating way as the story progresses.  He goes from being a bouncing, boyish fireball to a hardened boxing machine with very little left over for living life.  The actors are no doubt aided by the atmospheric set design which quickly evokes many different locations and the understatedly perfect costumes.  The stark lighting almost makes you feel like, even when you're blocks away from a boxing arena, the actors are still in the ring fighting it out with each other.