The first of the Neil Simon revivals to open on Broadway this season, Brighton Beach Memoirs, which was first produced in 1983, opened last night at the Nederlander theater and if you want to live in the past, this well done, well directed and well acted play about the goings on in a single family house in Brooklyn back in 1937, than this show is for you.
As with any Neil Simon play, the jokes come at you in rapid fire and while the story about the life of a 15 year old boy and his imagined family is funny it’s really a slice of life story that has everyone in the family confronting a problem. Dad lost his job and has a heart attack, a brother gets in trouble at work, the Aunt who lives with them has asthma, one of her daughters has heart flutters while the other one isn’t allowed to be in a Broadway chorus and Mom tries to hold them all together but no need to worry Eugene Morris Jerome, that’s our young hero, narrates all the goings on with off hand asides to the audience and that’s really what makes BBM enjoyable.
Noah Robbins in the part of Eugene that made Mathew Broderick famous, quite frankly is just as good and in many ways better. I never did like the Broderick sing song approach which he still uses so this time round the 15 year old is really believable. Laurie Metcalf plays the mother, originally played by Elizabeth Franz, and her facial expressions and sarcastic lines are spot on. The rest of the cast is first rate and I couldn’t find a flaw anywhere and the two story set is more than well done.
So do you run out and see Brighton Beach Memoirs? Well if you want to live in the past before TV sitcoms ruined this kind of humor and want to relive your perhaps misspent youth seeing it may while away a pleasant evening. I’m not sure anyone under the age of 50 will care about the goings on, but I’ll leave that final decision up to you.
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