Friday Column: On Brighton Beach Memoirs

On the recommendation of several people, I went to see Brighton Beach memoirs at the Repertory Theater in STL, across the street from the Webster University library. It closes after this weekend. I am glad I went. I am not the biggest Neil Simon fan, but this seemed less formulaic than some of his work. It reminded me a bit of the old TV show MASH, where the drama is heightened by the comic touches and situations throughout. It is set in Brooklyn, 1937. Economic pressure weighs heavily on everyone. Even though times are hard, the bonds of family come first. They open their tiny apartment to three relatives left homeless by the untimely death of a 36 year old husband and father. Simon is willing to expose the pathos of having to rely on the kindness of relatives, the corrosive effect of dependency on self-esteem. In our time, we complain ceaselessly about conditions that would have been a dreamscape to people in 1937. In the midst of the dramatic family life, the laughter comes. Eugene, the fifteen year old is going through puberty and is an aspiring writer. He can copy his mother verbatim, with gems such as ‘write quietly, I have a cake in the oven.” This is a family where dreaded illness gets whispered, like cancer, as if saying it out loud could bring it marching into a life. Yes, they fight, but in the end, the ties that bind are family. These are folks who communicate by shouting out an open window as much as speaking face to face. Still, in family, we love less in spite of the foibles we all carry, but maybe because of them, for they help define a member of that indestructible bond: family. As a father, I appreciated that the father is portrayed with his failures. At the same time, he is a figure who notices the world around him, the differences of people in the family, and the depths of the psyche that only the observant like him can even begin to plumb. One of the sources for conflict in the play is the way we harbor resentments over the years. In the play, life has a way of crushing aspirations. From youth, we may feel underappreciated, virtually ignored, and blamed for misfortunes. We suspect that someone else was the favorite in the family, and we may even envy those who receive more care due to illness or disability. The father recounts how his Dad could never remember the names of four sons, so referred to them as the big one, the little one, the idiot, and so on. Still, it is the trouble and deprivations that draw the family together. it does not threaten to drive them apart. The mother hugs the father and says that it is good for a worrier to marry someone prone to fainting; they make a matched set. The play is set in a serious world. The movies provided an image of glamour and escape. The newspaper served as the ordinary person’s university and opened up a world to the people of Brighton Beach. Not only did the radio offer serials, music, and ball games, it offered news of a world that was hurtling toward the destruction of WWII and the horror of the Holocaust. It made me think of how debased so much of our media coverage has become. how little faith we have developed in the capacity of our citizenry. I was not raised to go to see plays. I owe that to a wonder of a high school English Teacher, Mrs. Grote. My limited horizon was expanded by her challenging reading material. Plays continue to draw me into a new and deeper world.