BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS is part one of Neil Simon’s autobiographical trilogy (Second Chapter is Biloxi Blues and Third Chapter is Broadway Bound): a portrait of the writer as a Brooklyn teenager in 1937 living with his family in crowded, lower-middle-class circumstances. Eugene (the young Neil Simon) is the narrator and central character. His mind is full of fiercely fantasized dreams of baseball and dimly fantasized images of girls. The play captures a few days in the life of a struggling Jewish household that includes Eugene’s hard-working father, his sharp-tongued mother, his older and vastly more experienced brother, Stanley, his widowed aunt and her two younger daughters. As Eugene’s father says, “If you didn’t have a problem, you wouldn’t live in this house.” Two have heart disease, one has asthma, and two at least temporarily lose jobs needed to keep the straitened family afloat. Family miseries are used to raise such enduring issues as sibling resentments, guilt-ridden parent-child relationship and the hunger for dignity in a poverty-stricken world. It is a deeply appealing play that deftly mixes drama with comedy.
