In Clifford Odets' original 1937 play, Golden Boy, the protagonist was an Italian American torn between playing the violin and boxing. When turning the work into a musical (1964), Odets threw out the violin plot and changed the title character into a black Harlemite, Joe Wellington, just out to make a fast buck. When Odets died during the writing, his friend William Gibson took up the pen and finished the adaptation. London has not seen the musical since 1968, so a new production is welcome. The director, Rick Jacobs, has updated and revised the book and some of the lyrics (as Leslie Lee before him had done in the late eighties). But the book still remains too melodramatic and unconvincing.
For this revival, Charles Strouse has contributed two new songs to his uneven score. Most of the singing is done by Joe and his beloved Lorna, the white girlfriend of his manager, Tom -- a racial relationship that was controversial in the sixties but no great shakes today.
The chief virtue of this show is Jason Pennycooke as Joe. He's a first-class actor with a fine tenor voice, and his dancing is eye-poppingly virtuosic -- all of which adds up to a sensational performance. Sally Ann Triplett is splendid as Lorna, especially in the slow, moody "Lorna's Here" and her love duet with Joe, "I Wanna Be With You." As Joe's sister Anna, who disapproves of his boxing, Alana Maria brings intensity to her "Winners." "Don't Forget 127th Street" is a rousing show-stopper, superbly danced by an ensemble of nine.
The director has staged the climactic and ill-fated prize fight excitingly in front of designer Richard Aylwin's wire-mesh cyclorama.
