Comedy is likable, but play feels dated
Brighton Beach Memoirs
(out of 4) Book by Neil Simon. Directed by Sheila McCarthy. Until June 10 at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St. hgjewishtheatre.com or 1-855-985-2787
On the cusp of turning 15, Eugene Morris Jerome’s priorities are the Yankees, ice cream and ogling his 16-year-old cousin Nora (not necessarily in that order). As played by Lawrence Libor in the new Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company production, the energetic young narrator of the first part of Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical Eugene trilogy sets the perfect clip for the 1982 domestic drama about coming of age in a Jewish family.
Libor plays Eugene like a highenergy pug puppy, a grizzled and indignant baby of a man who leaps onto ledges and grapples affectionately with his older brother Stanley (Umed Amin).
It’s an essential casting coup; Eugene’s zippy lens livens up a book that favours monologues to plot development.
The story takes place in 1937, at the height of the Great Depression.
The Jerome family is struggling to make ends meet on Jack’s salary, which he earns in the not-exactly-booming industry of cutting material for “ladies’ raincoats.”
On this one salary, the family also supports their widowed aunt Blanche and her daughters Nora and Laurie. No wonder they can only afford liver for dinner.
The cast succeeds in creating a believable family unit. There’s a genuine warmth among the ensemble, even as they bicker, nag and guilt their way through their assorted trials.
Easily stealing the show is Sarah Orenstein as Kate. The nuances of her vocal range are particularly fit for comedy, a master class in the many different ways to be shocked and appalled by everything.
But despite this likable cast, there isn’t much about Brighton Beach Memoirs that feels particularly 2018.
Simon’s focus is on the everyday concerns of Gene and his pre-internet sexual awakening, and they may as well have been unfurled from a medieval scroll.
Spying on girls’ legs under the table, ambushing them in the shower and looking up their skirts are behaviours that seem especially antiquated and problematic right now, and yet the show plays them for laughs.
More effective are the older siblings’ brooding descents into adulthood.
Between acts, both teenagers Nora (Kelsey Falconer) and Stanley become unrecognizable to their parents in a nimble narrative shift.
After Nora’s mom denies her the opportunity to audition for a Broadway play, she buries her resentment beneath a chilling cordiality.
Stanley, meanwhile, becomes embroiled in his own corner of the Brooklyn underbelly. As played by Amin, Stanley successfully blends both intensity and insecurity into an intriguing, enigmatic character.
A strong ensemble, including a truly excellent performance by Orenstein, makes Brighton Beach Memoirs a reliable bet. But faithfully staged and without a strong contemporary connection, it can’t truly qualify as a must-see for local theatre diehards.
Gene and his pre-internet sexual awakening may as well have been unfurled from a medieval scroll