James Karas
Brighton Beach Memoirs is Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical play about
his youth, his family and his beginnings as a writer. It is set in the New York
suburb of Brighton Beach in 1937 when the fear of another major war was in the
air and the memory of the last great war was a recent memory.
It is a genial play about family conflict, sexual awakening and the
struggle for survival involving fundamentally decent people who love each other
deeply. That is the atmosphere that any production of the play must capture and
the current one by The Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company does it beautifully.
The central character is Eugene Jerome (mostly Neil Simon as a teenager)
played by Lawrence Libor. Eugene dreams of becoming a baseball players as he
tosses a baseball against the wall of his house to the annoyance of everyone.
His hormones have woken up and he is wondering about his cousin Nora’s breasts
and what a naked woman looks like. When his older
brother Stanley (Umed Amin) gives him a picture of a completely naked woman,
Eugene goes hilariously crazy. But he is mostly an observer of his world and an
inveterate note taker. He is Neil Simon in the making and Libor goes through
the angst of puberty in an exemplary fashion.
Amin as Stanley is a brother, a friend, a competitor and a supporter
despite some friction and disagreements. A convincing relationship is developed
by the two actors.
The Jerome family, father Jack (David Eisner), mother Kate (Sarah
Orenstein) and their two sons are working class immigrants who have trouble
making ends meet. Kate’s widowed sister Blanche (Nicole Underhay) and her two
daughters, Nora (Kelsey Falconer) and Laurie (Meghan Caine) live with them and
there is tension among them.
Eisner as Jack is a factory worker who wants his children to have
principles and stand for what is right. He holds two jobs to make ends meet
until he suffers a heart attack. He is a peace-maker and in the end a mensch. Kate
loves her family but there is tension between her and her sister going back to
childhood. Blanche wants to date an Irish neighbour and Kate is against it
because he is probably a drunkard but more so because he is Irish. Simon is not
afraid to look at prejudice going both ways. Again a fine relationship is
developed by the two actors in their fine performances.
Nora has been offered a small part in a Broadway musical and her mother
and uncle do not want her to take it. She should finish high school. The family’s
ambitions go no further than high school. College is a distant dream. Falconer
in the role ably displays the determination of a young girl and the friction
that it creates.
As is inevitable, the living arrangements cannot last for long and the
two families do break up. Blanche goes to live with a friend. But relatives
from Europe are on their way and the play ends on a positive note. In real
life, the Simon family moved out.
The set by Sean Mulcahy consists of six playing areas on two levels
giving us a cross section of the Jerome house. There are two bedrooms and a
balcony on the upper level, a living room, dining room and doorway into the
house on the lower level. It is an image of a comfortable home.
The task of director Sheila McCarthy was to capture the humor, the love
and wonderful interaction of the characters in the atmosphere of familial conflict
that is nevertheless overwhelmingly loving. She has done that in this
affectionate, humane and humorous look at the largely autobiographical look at
the author’s puberty.
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Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon, production
by the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company, continues until June 10, 2018 at the Greenwin Theatre, Toronto Centre
for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St, North York, ON M2N 6R8. www.hgjewishtheatre.com
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