Golden Boy Previews

[eperkins]

I got a orchestra seat from TDF last week.

[vegas2]

Good to know. I'll keep checking as my dates approach.

[AGermano]

Where in the orchestra, eperkins? Going tomorrow night through TDF!

[iflip4musicals]

I just got a LincTix Orchestra A2 for next Saturday night, very excited!

[RippedMan]

Yeah I got a LincTix the day before. Front row center. The stage is high though, so unless you're tall I'd say sit back a few, or even up in the balcony.

[eperkins]

AGermano: My seat was J18. So I was pretty close, but off to the side. A bit farther than I would have liked, but only extreme stage left was out of sight, and not much happened there. Then the two (very large) people sitting to my left did not come back after the first intermission, so I moved 2 seats over more center, and that was much better.

[topflight]

I am going soon and am pretty hopeful. Seems like most feedback has been positive, especially towards the cast.

[Wee Thomas2]

Loved the show when we saw it on Saturday. Had 3rd row seats for $79 or so from broadwaybox or Playbill.com, which is actually too close, as it's a high stage. I'd recommend at least row 7 so you can see everything.

We also got an extra 10 minutes of run time, as in the beginning of Act III (and they did keep the intermissions to 10 minutes), one of the sets got stuck near the back of the stage. First a technician came out and tried to unstick it, then the curtain came down and a disembodied voice told us that they were working on the problem.

I agree with prior comments -- the sets were great, but I don't think they had to be as all-encompassing as they were. They slow down the transitions between scenes. The lighting couldn't have been better and the acting was tremendous. Should be a few awards heading their way.

[eperkins]

I was hoping they would get those scene transitions to move more quickly - I thought it was a technical thing. But I guess not! Didn't keeping me from liking the show - a lot.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Glad to say I've finally seen the play, but had some major reservations about the two leads -- he did not have the physique of a boxer and was otherwise unconvincing and she left me cold. Tony Shalhoub and Anthony Crivello were fine and I was impressed by some of the sets, particulary the locker room/gymnasium effects. There was a technical glitch at the end of the show -- had to lower curtain to adjust the set -- five minutes before the end of the play which broke the cumlative effect. Be warned: the first act is almost 90 minutes and is the most slow-moving of the three.

[eperkins]

"he did not have the physique of a boxer"

Do you think Luther Adler, who played Joe in the original Broadway production (and pictured here with Francis Farmer, playing Lorna) had more of a boxer physique?

Perhaps you are not aware that there are different weight classifications for boxing? Seth Numrich would be a middleweight, I think. And he was plenty fit enough looking too, IMHO.

[topflight]

Yeah, I agree the fitness of the lead was in line with 1930s boxing. As for the acting of the two leads, I found them both quite affecting and terrific. I have seen Seth Numrich before and enjoyed him then and in this. As for the actress who played Lorna Moon, I quite liked her. Her character is quite hard but she had a certain vulnerability.

Burstein, Shaloub, and the actor who played Tom were great too.

[mamaleh]

Love the great buzz this is getting. Looking forward to seeing it tomorrow.

[Sauja]

I guess every play and production has at least one detractor, and unfortunately, I find myself in that role for this Golden Boy.

Much as Joe is a bit of a mystery at the heart of the story (we puzzle over his motivations, wonder who he is and who he'll become), I feel like the actor who plays him needs to have answered those questions for himself. Rather than be crisp and clear and making me wonder about Joe's hidden depths, I found Seth Numrich's performance vague and, as such, not particularly moving. And I didn't feel he got much help from Yvonne Strahovski's Lorna. I could not buy her as a woman of the world who had gotten through abusive relationships and developed hard edges and steely resolve.

The machinations of the play are now widely visible to the audience. At first intermission, someone behind me said, "Well, I guess the only question is if a hand is going to break in Act 2 or Act 3." I have no complaints about the fact that in some older plays, particularly melodramas, the conventions have become transparent with time. But without feeling a curiosity about what's going to happen, the audience really needs to be able to connect with the characters on stage. And I just didn't find that here. With Lorna or Joe or Moody. The actors who really registered for me were Burstein and Shaloub--both in smaller roles, who seemed more comfortable with the style of the play and could put across melodrama without losing that kernel of natural human emotion.

Add on some very real overdesign across the board (scenery mostly, but costumes, lighting, and sound all suffered similar problems) and those dreadful scene transitions, and this just became a bit of a slog.

A strong play (though for me not Odets' best), I simply found it underserved by this particular production.

[eperkins]

Good review, Sauja. I don't agree with your assessments of the performances, but I do like the fact that you went into the hows and whys of your conclusions. Good criticism, whether you agree or not, is often enlightening.

[AndersonTours]

Sauja, we saw the same play.

While I liked the evening overall more than you did,
I didn't feel anything - and I wanted to so very much - ANYTHING for the two leads. I just felt that Joe was a mystery to me and I never really connected with him and Lorna would have been better served by another actress. Not trying to be mean, she is just not good enough. IMHO.

Agree that Burstein & Shalhoub were in fine form - as many others have also said. Wouldn't be surprised if nominations were in their future - depending on the rest of the season, of course. But they made Odets' difficult language human and real. No easy feat. It's why I go to the theater. To see great acting moments like the ones they had. Beautiful work by both.

[callitquits]

I wish "Go On" didn't exist, because I think Laura Benanti could have really knocked Lorna out of the park.

I really loved most aspects of this production, but Strahovski's voice/accent were a little too Lina Lamont/"dumb gangster's moll" for me, and I didn't buy her strength -- the point, of course, is that Lorna's hard exterior masks a vulnerable little girl beneath, but here, it seemed all weak little girl. It made the angrier Joe/Lorna interactions a little late-in-the-play Othello/Desdemona at times, and I loved Numrich's performance, so I would rather Lorna be stronger to match his Joe than have him dial down any of his riveting intensity. Again, I bet if "Go On" wasn't happening, Benanti would have been on Sher's short list of potential Lornas, and I think this production would have been better for it, but... que sera, sera.

[topflight]

Always interesting to hear different viewpoints. The leads were very good to me. She really touched me for some reason. I felt the cast was super strong across the board and its the main strength of the production. If I were to be negative on anything it would be the play itself is a bit creaky, but the performances overrode that and made it enjoyable.

[jayinchelsea]

Melodrama is a lost art, and I think Bart Sher really gets it. Yes, the play is long, but Sher understood the essence of Odets, as he proved last time with AWAKE AND SING, and he nails it. I loved the scene transitions, loved Seth and Yvonne in the leads, and was amazed by Tony Shalhoub, who played all the cliches as though they were real and had never been performed before. Great opportunity to see Odets in a full production, hope Sher continues to mine the Odets canon in these full-out productions.

[RippedMan]

I liked him. I wasn't blown away, but yeah, I liked him. Her. Not so much. She was awful.

[eperkins]

So, My second viewing of Golden Boy at today's matinee. Again a TDF ticket, and almost the exact same orchestra seat I had before - except this time house left instead of right. (J17 this time, J18 last time). Performances, for me, were still on the money. Running time was about 10 minutes shorter (about 2:50 this time), and the transitions seemed shorter (although I know some people will still say they are too long). I did notice that some transitions couldn't really go any faster, because there were costume changes involved, and they need every bit of the time to do them. And speaking of costumes, Miss Moon now has several pair of shoes in her expanded wardrobe.

The show opens this coming Thursday, December 6th.

[JackiesBroJoe]

I went Friday night and had excellent TDF seats on the aisle. We found the production thrilling. I had read it in college many years ago but never seen it staged. The transitions were poetry in motion - the kind of expressionist work you don't see often on Broadway. Seems like some solid work was done in previews -- didn't see any of the problems mentioned earlier in this thread. Wishing everyone involved the best.

[newintown]

I thought this was a really enjoyable experience. Sure, Shaloub's accent is weird, and there's a lot of acting going on that many will find inappropriate based upon their familiarity with the play.

But it's fun to see a big old play done in a big old way. Strange to think that in 1937, when Golden Boy premiered, there were 128 non-musical plays presented on Broadway, many of them employing 20+ actors, some of whom had 1 line (or no lines). (This year, we had 24.)

How often do we see a play today with key scenes featuring 8 actors, all of them intrinsic to the action?

A fun change of pace.

[darion]

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

I saw this tonight and have to echo all of the resounding positive buzz around this knockout (no pun intended) production. I had never seen or read GOLDEN BOY before this evening and was just floored by Odets' brilliant writing. Bart Sher has done with this show what Roundabout needs to learn to do. He's done far more than simply blow the dust off of an old chestnut and slavishly toss it onstage. He, this fantastic cast, and brilliant design team have brought this text back to life and molded this mounting into a truly exhilarating, challenging, and breathtaking theatrical experience.

Sure, the first act drags a bit but it all comes together by the end and the decision to make the first act markedly more pensive and slow makes the final impact all the more impressive and startling. Sher has outdone himself once again.

The cast is uniformly great, with high marks going to Danny Burstein, Danny Mastrogiorgio, and Seth Neumrich who is beyond impressive in a very difficult role. I wasn't crazy about Tony Shaloub, Yvonne Strahovsky, or Dagmara Dominczyk, but they are far from disastrous. The sets, costumes, and lights are all strikingly beautiful and evocative. The show really could not look better.

After this and THE PIANO LESSON, my theatergoing experiences of 2013 are off to a fantastic start. It's a true shame this emotionally resonant and beautiful show will be gone in a few days. While not absolutely flawless or perfect (what show is?) there are certainly moments and scenes in this production that really remind you just how powerful and transportative live theater can truly be. And it doesn't get better than that. Just fantastic.