Here’s one way you know “Golden Boy” is set in the past: Its hero is torn between idealistic music-making and a lucrative sports career. But instead of micro-managing him to a Nike endorsement, his father pushes for art. How’s that for old-fashioned?
Living with your choice is as tough as making the decision in the first place, and that tension fuels Clifford Odets’ 1937 play, which Lincoln Center Theater’s just revived on Broadway. There’s no easy solution in “Golden Boy,” and the play hurtles forward with the momentum of tragedy.
The young man straddling two worlds is Joe Bonaparte (Seth Numrich), the 21-year-old son of an Italian immigrant (Tony Shalhoub) who sells vegetables from a horse-drawn cart.
Joe’s curse is that he’s a gifted violin player and a canny boxer. His heart is with music, but prizefighting pays the bills, and then some.
The elder Bonaparte spends his savings on a beautiful instrument for his son, explaining that “for me, a violinist is a servant to humanity.” Too late: The son picks door No. 2 and signs up with manager Tom Moody (Danny Mastrogiorgio), who’s counting on him to escape the bottom-feeding leagues.
Success comes quick and fairly easy, but you can tell Joe isn’t 100 percent sold on his career: He tries to protect his fiddle-playing hands by banking on speed and strategy.
“He’s not a slugger,” observes Moody’s mistress, Lorna Moon (Yvonne Strahovski, of TV’s “Chuck” and “Dexter”). “His main asset is his science.”
Lorna’s as much of a fighter as Joe, and her own main assets are adaptability and quick wit. “Go to hell!” she tells Moody, before adding a seductive, “but come back tonight.”
Lorna speaks in pungent hardboiled-ese, but she also has some of the play’s most lyrical lines. In a terrific Broadway debut, the Australian actress gives the character a deceptively languid manner. Yet behind Lorna’s detached, self-protective pose we see a woman who’s buffeted between romance and practicality.
Too bad we don’t get a similarly insightful performance from Numrich, so touching as the human lead in “War Horse.” He gets the job done, but fails to take full possession of the stage and never graduates from good to great.
Bartlett Sher, who also directed the 2006 revival of Odets’ “Awake and Sing!,” doesn’t always succeed in suggesting the story’s tragic full scope, but his production has many assets. Michael Yeargan’s sets and Donald Holder’s lighting magically summon 50 shades of tough-guy gray, and some of the boxing scenes look like animated versions of George Bellows’ paintings.
The excellent supporting cast also makes the most of Odets’ mix of naturalism and poetry. Shalhoub, in particular, creates a quietly proud rendering of Mr. Bonaparte, a loving, reserved father disappointed by what his son has become. Turns out boxing can do as much damage to your heart as your bones.