Adam Markovitz

We should all be so lucky to end up as spry and sharp at 75 as Clifford Odets' Golden Boy, which debuted on Broadway in 1937 and has been given a handsome revival by Lincoln Center Theater at Broadway's Belasco Theatre. The show's old-country characters and cobblestone street slang may have aged into artifacts of Old New York, but the story still has plenty of energy and surefooted emotion even if it doesn't quite pack a knockout punch….In the play's opening act..., Odets' razor-edge dialogue sets the drama in motion so intelligently and with such casual wit that each scene practically demands its own curtain call. It isn't until the third act that weighty moral issues drag the show down from its high spirits. But by then you'll be seduced fully enough by director Bartlett Sher's light-footed pace and Michael Yeargan's evocatively lean sets to root for Golden Boy to the final round.

The musical flits between delightful and exasperating on a second-by-second basis — boosted by terrific supporting players (especially Judy Kaye as a zealous teetotaler) and dragged down by Broderick, who waltzes alongside his costars with the good-natured boredom of a tipsy wedding guest. Luckily for him, the show has a built-in fail-safe: the Gershwin songbook, a portable fireworks kit of dazzlers ('Someone to Watch Over Me,' 'Do It Again') guaranteed to charm just about anyone, theater fan or not.