"Brighton Beach Memoirs" runs now through June 29 at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre.
There's a lot of drama, and a lot of comedy, in the life of young Eugene Morris Jerome of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
He's a young teen who has started to notice girls, and think about them in a special way. He learns about adulthood from his barely-adult older brother, Stanley. He's kept hopping with family chores, assigned by his stressed-out parents, Kate and Jack, and contend with a crowded house. Because of his uncle's death, his Aunt Blanche and her two daughters Nora and Laurie -- Nora is quite appealing to the maturing Eugene -- are sharing the Jerome residence.
Eugene dreams of playing for the New York Yankees, but also loves writing -- documenting the everyday dramas occurring in his household. Seen through Eugene's eyes -- as the narrator of the action -- the audience can appreciate how momentous a fight between siblings, a secret about having trouble at work, or even the loss of just $17 in a household on a shoestring budget, can be.
This is the world of Ephrata Performing Arts Center's "Brighton Beach Memoirs," which opened last night and runs through June 29 at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre.
Though the play is set before World War II -- as I watched the final rehearsal on Wednesday, I kept realizing that the older teen girl in the play is about the age my own mother would have been in 1937! -- many of the familial events it chronicles are universal, and are probably happening in many recession-recovering households today.
Director Michael Swanson has assembled a wonderful cast that brings Neil Simon's well-crafted play to life in a funny, touching, very HUMAN way. They'll have you laughing at their characters' human foibles one minute, and crying the next as your heart breaks for them in their life struggles.
When "Brighton Beach Memoirs" premiered on Broadway 30 years ago, many critics commented that Simon's writing had turned a corner: He was no longer a writer of joke-after-joke plays; his work had gained a layered maturity and a depth that would carry him through the three plays of his "Eugene" trilogy, and result in his Pulitzer Prize for "Lost in Yonkers" (a recent hit at EPAC).
You won't want to miss this heartwarming play; you just might see a bit of your own family in it!
Call (717) 733-7966 for tickets, or visit the website for more information.
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