Clifford Odets' gritty American drama Golden Boy is not performed regularly but director Isabel Lynch resolved to rectify that and now her touring show is to visit the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, next week.
"I did his play Awake And Sing about six years ago, and read his other plays at the time, and that's how I came across Golden Boy, which was his most successful work in his days at New York's Group Theatre," says Isabel.
"Maybe it's not done that often because it has a cast of 19, but we're doing it with 15 with some double casting, and what made me really want to do it is that the writing is so very good, so very rich.
"The characters are very fulfilling, and it's fulfilling to direct too."
In Golden Boy, social-protest playwright Odets considers the dilemma that befalls Joe Bonaparte, a poor immigrant man in 1930s' downtown New York, who must decide between pursuing a dream and making enough money for a better life. He must choose either his violin-playing or boxing skills, happiness or wealth, in an urban drama that captures the spirit of the age while championing the lives and challenges of everyday life.
Violin music by Saint-Saens will complement Odets' wisecracking dialogue in a production mounted by Broadway Productions and the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford.
Golden Boy, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, September 10 to 14. Box office: 0113 213 7700.
Updated: 09:14 Friday, September 06, 2002
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