Cast, crew make this boxing tale into a contender

By James Hebert

UNION-TRIBUNE THEATER CRITIC

June 23, 2008

The boxer at the center of “Golden Boy” is a lightweight. Clifford Odets’ play definitely is anything but.

This moody piece about pugs and palookas and a fiddle-playing champ has been through more than a few rounds (it was first produced more than 70 years ago), but it still fills a stage with its bracing wit and rough-and-ready sense of poetry.

Speaking of filling a stage: You would think New Village Arts Theatre must have been punch-drunk to take on this sprawling three-act work, featuring enough characters to populate a week’s worth of undercards.

It’s a seriously ambitious undertaking for a small theater – even one as accomplished as NVA, which just marked its seventh anniversary (and its first at the company’s downtown Carlsbad space).

But director Joshua Everett Johnson, his cast and an able creative team pull it off in grand style. Their own sweet science is in keeping the play’s feel intimate, even with 15 actors and an epic, Greek-tragedy thematic sense.

Joe Bonaparte (Michael Zlotnik) is a boxer from a poor New York family who has the chops and brash ambition to become lightweight champ. Trouble is, he’s a little too talented: When he’s not giving opponents chin music, he’s showcasing his virtuoso touch on the violin.

His wrenching choice between the fist and the fiddle – between a lust for money and a devotion to art – is at the heart of this tough-minded but often mordantly comic play.Joe knows he can’t do both; boxing will ruin his hands for music. But he carries a deeply buried streak of violence (or self-destruction) that he seems helpless to prevent from overpowering his love for the violin.

“If music shot bullets, I’d like it better,” as he puts it, in one of Odets’ jab-like lines.

Zlotnik at first seems impossibly young and slight as Joe, but he makes the role his own with an understated sarcasm and a way of conveying inner turmoil with an economy of expression (in what could be an easy role to ham up). He makes it easy to believe in a kid who can’t stop picking fights even when there’s no ring in sight.

Versatile Manny Fernandes, an NVA regular, steps deftly into the shoes of Tom, Joe’s at-first-reluctant manager; he’s a schemer and a shlub who decides this new kid is “everything we want, everything we need from life.”

No one seems more perfectly in period, though, than Amanda Sitton as Lorna, the “tramp from Newark” (a self-description she wields like a doctor’s note for chronic failure) who is the married Tom’s squeeze. She’s a doll turning into a moll, with her wisecracks and the pugnacious set of her jaw.

Director Johnson, an actor who never fails to be interesting onstage, brings a whole weather system of weirdness when he arrives in Act 2 as the spooky Eddie. He’s a promoter who seems more professional extortionist; Johnson plays him like a snake about to molt a fresh pinstriped suit.

The play, a bit long but with enough momentum to sustain the slow moments, boasts plenty of other sharp performances: Eddie Yaroch as the excitable business partner Roxie; Jeff Anthony Miller as the good-hearted, bemused trainer Tokio; Eric Poppick as Joe’s devoted but heartbroken dad; and Greg Wittman as a comical brother-in-law.

The inventive set by NVA executive artistic director Kristianne Kurner and Tim Wallace includes a loft where boxers perform in nickelodeon-esque vignettes behind a scrim; the effect is a technical knockout.

From early on, Odets makes it clear that the golden boy will pay a price for the life he chooses. Though Joe’s love for music can feel glossed over – as though it’s a matter we should take on the playwright’s word – Odets’ indelible characters and NVA’s expert staging still make this show a winner.

Writer: Clifford Odets. Director: Joshua Everett Johnson. Sets: Kristianne Kurner, Tim Wallace. Lighting: Nate Parde. Costumes: Mary Larson. Sound: Adam Lansky. Cast: Michael Zlotnik, Amanda Sitton, Manny Fernandes, Joshua Everett Johnson, Eric Poppick, Jeff Anthony Miller, Eddie Yaroch, Greg Wittman, Ryan Lahetta, Pat Moran, Ryan Hunter Lee, John DeCarlo, Amanda Dane, Carlos Darze, Sassan Saffari.

James Hebert: (619) 293-2040; jim.hebert@uniontrib.com

Joshua Everett Johnson, right, directs and co-stars in “Golden Boy” for New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad.

By PATRICIA MORRIS BUCKLEY - For the North County Times | Wednesday, June 18, 2008 9:28 AM PDT

Joshua Everett Johnson admits that Clifford Odets’ “Golden Boy” is just the type of show that scares theater companies —- even New Village Arts Theatre.

“This isn’t a play that you just throw together,” said Johnson, who both directs and acts in the production. “It’s scary to do, but we’ve always been a theater company that lives on the edge of our seats. It’s very close to the kind of theater we do —- theater inspired by the Actor’s Studio. It felt time to tackle it.”

First produced in 1937, “Golden Boy” is the story of Joe Bonaparte, a promising violinist who has another talent —- boxing. The lure of boxing is the opportunity to make big money. But it also holds the threat of hurting his hands so that he can no longer play the violin.

The play also follows a real struggle in Odets’ life. He had started to dabble in Hollywood after the success of his plays, “Waiting for Lefty” and “Awake and Sing!” Hollywood, like boxing, held the promise of big money, while theater meant a more satisfying artistic experience to him. Interestingly enough, the play eventually became a movie, which starred a young William Holden in his first starring role.

“This play originated with Odets’ work in New York City with the Group Theatre,” said Johnson, who plays Joe’s prizefighting promoter. “It was during a very inspiring time for American theater. We are such fans of the Group Theatre, and you can see its influence all over this work.”

The writing is what makes the play special, he pointed out.

“This is a play that’s simultaneously of the streets and poetic. It’s a combination of beauty and street smarts, of guts and softness. It’s like a great slice of humanity. It’s so unbelievably beautiful and alive,” said Johnson, a longtime New Village Arts company member who became the company’s artistic associate this past spring.

It’s also one of the largest casts ever assembled for a New Village Arts production. Originally written for 19 actors, this production features 14 actors.

“The greatest challenge of the show is the size,” he said. “It’s a three-act play with a large cast. Even the set is huge. It can be really intimidating unless you get a firm grasp of the language. But the same things that make it challenging are the things that make it exciting.”

The play is set during the Depression era of the 1930s in New York City.

“It’s soaked in that time and place,” he noted. “It couldn’t be in any other place or time.”

The ultimate message is clear: “We all fight to become someone bigger or better, but perhaps you need to stop,” he said. “You might already be who you want to be. And you might lose your humanity in the struggle for material things. This play shows how there’s such beauty in strength itself.”

“Golden Boy”

When: Opens Saturday and runs through July 31; showtimes, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: New Village Arts Theatre, 2787 B State St., Carlsbad

Tickets: $26, general; $22, seniors, students and military

Phone: (760) 433-3245

Web: NewVillageArts.org