by Jonathan Warman

I’ve never been much of a fan of Neil Simon’s work, so I haven’t made much of an effort to get to know Brighton Beach Memoirs or its companion plays Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound in the twentysomething years they’ve been around. Yes, I know that they are regularly praised as his best work, as the plays in which he successfully goes beyond his sitcom-y reputation (without turning his back on it). These reports piqued my interest, but never quite enough to read them or see regional productions.

So I came to this production with moderately low expectations, and was moderately pleasantly surprised. This semi-autobiographical play focuses on young Jewish teen Eugene Morris Jerome (loosely based on Simon himself) and his extended family living in a crowded home in late `30s Brighton Beach.

Brighton Beach Memoirs still trades somewhat on formulas that have success on television, but more in the direction of good soap opera than situation comedy. It is very tightly plotted, and Simon deftly builds suspense. There are still the expected one-liners (including one tasteless and mean one at the expense of a fat gay kid).

Director David Cromer has given us a production that is miles more grounded and humane than any other Simon play I’ve seen. The cast is uniformly strong, although I’d definitely single out Laurie Metcalf and Dennis Boutsikaris as Mama Kate Jerome and Papa Jack Jerome—these characters are the heart of the show and Metcalf and Boutsikaris’s performance are unsentimentally full-hearted.

Brighton Beach Memoirs will be playing in repertory with Broadway Bound, generally agreed to be the best play in the trilogy that Memoirs opens. For possibly the first time ever, I’m actually looking forward to seeing a Neil Simon play.

For tickets, click here.

For more reviews and interviews by Jonathan Warman, see dramaqueennyc.com.