TheatreWorks does Neil Simon Justice - Autobiographical 'Brighton Beach Memoirs' warm and cozy in New
2007-05-10
To be successful, autobiographical works must balance self-congratulations with ego-puncturing reality. It's an easy task for a comedy writer like Neil Simon, as his 1983 "Brighton Beach Memoirs" demonstrates. "Memoirs," the first segment of his self-centered trilogy and considered one of the playwright's best works, is receiving a first-rate staging at TheatreWorks in New Milford.
The central character of Simon's three-play cycle, which includes "Biloxi Blues" and "Broadway Bound," is 15-year-old Eugene Morris Jerome, a Russian Jew who lives with his closely knit family in the plain, not fancy, Brighton Beach neighborhood. It's 1937 and even as the shadows of the Great Depression linger, a new, grimmer specter looms large in Nazi Germany.
Simon's work is a very funny portrait of Eugene's coming of age and that includes experiencing the angst of puberty and exploring the mysteries of sex. All that for distraction and the New York Yankees only blocks away!
Simon wasn't afraid to poke fun at Eugene, his stand-in-character. In fact, he seems to have gone out of his way to make him a nerd, albeit an endearing one. And the Jeromes are like most families -- a little crazy, a lot noisy and totally devoted to one another.
Warm and cozy like well-worn furniture, the TheatreWorks's production is a photo album come to life, one in which the people and the period are forever affectionately locked in time.
In addition to a handsome, perfectly detailed set designed by the director, Glenn R. Couture, this is a sterling example of ensemble acting, where the characterizations are so dovetailed there's no question these are all members of the same family and not just seven actors on the same stage.
In the part of Eugene, which won a Tony Award for the young Matthew Broderick, Ben Grinberg, who was an admirable CB (Charlie Brown) in the recent "Dog Sees God," once again proves he's a master at etching the woeful wonders of youth -- innocence on the brink of major, sometimes disturbing, discoveries about life.
Grinberg uses excellent timing to establish the cadence of Eugene's Brooklyn speech patterns and invests the boy with wide-eyed enthusiasm for the unsullied joys of the Yankees and naked girls (if only in photographs). He's good, too, tamping down his uncontrolled joie d'vivre as he suffers the first pangs of loss and change that come with age.
Many of Eugene's speeches are given directly to the audience (would a comedy writer give his stand-in hero anything less than center stage?) and these mini-monologues are amusing respites from the hurly-burly family life that goes on in the crowded Jerome household.
And crowded it is. There are Eugene's parents, Kate (M.J. Hartell) and Jack (Joe Harding), brother Stanley (Thomas Mulhare), Aunt Blanche (Susan Abrams) and her two daughters, Nora (Keilly Gillen McQuail) and Laurie (Emma Nissenbaum). That's a lot of mouths to feed on a limited budget and a lot of mouths each with something to say on every subject. The dinner table, you can well imagine, becomes a verbal arena.
Hartell excels in playing tough-love characters like many 1930s film actresses excelled in -- think Ann Sheridan or Joan Blondell -- and she's delightful here as a stern matriarch, aka the family referee. Harding plays the father with a sympathetic blend of reflection and resignation, and Abrams is convincing as a woman who feels disconnected.
Being a play about growing up, it's the youthful characters that provide most of the evening's sparks.
In addition to Grinberg's savvy performance, Mulhare is excellent as Eugene's older, adored brother and his heart-to-heart scene with Eugene about masturbation gets the evening's most laughs. Keilly Gillen McQuail, who continues to contribute solid performances at this theater, is winning as a budding young woman. If anything her role may be the least well-written because teenage girls seem to defy definition.
As the precocious, bratty Laurie, Nissenbaum is such a crafty little minx she would surely strike terror in any household, and one can only sympathize with her classmates in school.
Couture's steady direction, ably abetted by Tom Libonate, never tries for forced moments. The co-directors seem content to let the action flow along like everyday life.
"Memoirs" is a family portrait and as the Jerome's have the same ups and downs we all do in the long run, at the end of the day it's home and hearth that matters. For that reason, "Brighton Beach Memoirs" may not go anywhere, but it's a charming place to visit.