Clifford Odets was a vibrant New York playwright in a vibrant period in American theater: the 1930s. Life during the Great Depression provided rich material for works confronting the difficulties and opportunities that lay in the American experience. Odets explored those ideas first in the theater, and then in Hollywood, writing for the screen.

Three of his works have been revived recently in New York. The latest is Golden Boy, about a young man with both artistic talent and a taste for quicker, cruder fame.