Vivid ‘Brighton Beach’ Brings Memories to Life

Neil Simon entered a new period in his playwriting career with his autobiographical trilogy, which began with “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and continued with “Biloxi Blues” and “Broadway Bound.”

The best of the three remains the touching “Brighton Beach,” with its serious and comic insights into how a semi-dysfunctional family can reshape itself into vivid functionality.

With her staging of “Brighton Beach Memoirs” at the Long Beach Playhouse, director Phyllis Gitlin establishes her claim on Simon’s later work as her own territory. She has discovered Simon’s intent and shapes the drama with affection, understanding and a deft manner of treating the gentle transitions between humor and powerful drama.

The play covers a period when Simon’s alter-ego, Eugene Morris Jerome, is 15. He is still primarily hung up on baseball but beginning to obsess on the charms of his cousin Nora. As the play’s narrator, he also gives early evidence of Simon’s penchant for one-liners. The family problems that whirl around him only vaguely affect his life, a sensitive and honest contrast to the financial, spiritual and social ills that shape Jerome’s world in Depression-era Brooklyn.

Jeff Wilson is an excellent Eugene, all bombast and grins and moping, with just the right hint of love for those around him. Wilson knows where the humor is and handles it with charm and ease.

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Gitlin’s insightful casting has found beautiful contrast in Don Cisternino as Eugene’s older brother, Stanley, 18, unable to keep out of trouble but already beginning to taste the responsibilities of adulthood. Wilson’s pliant kid and Cisternino’s pseudo-confident young man mesh like a vaudeville team.

DeeBye Meyers, as Eugene’s long-suffering mother, Kate, is full of warmth and shows some of the humor inherited by her youngest son. She also gets strong effects with a simmering anger that only once explodes on the family. As her sister, Eugene’s asthmatic, insecure Aunt Blanche, Nancy Gibbs manages her character’s transition from quivering parasite to a shaky but positive self-assertion easily and with the same humor that saves the whole family.

The most stable figure in the play is Eugene’s father, Jack, played with effective restraint by Joseph Bass, whose solidity and compassion make the man real. As Aunt Blanche’s insecure daughters, Jennifer Dohn and Julie Alexandria provide honest and affecting portraits of young women of their time.

Throughout, it is a sense of humor contrasting with emotional and social turmoil that makes this such a strong play.

* “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage, 5201 E. Anaheim St. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and March 21. $12-$15. Ends March 27. (562) 494-1616.

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Brighton Beach Memoirs

Jeff Wilson: Eugene

DeeBye Meyer: Kate

Nancy Gibbs: Blanche

Jennifer Dohn: Laurie

Julie Alexandria: Nora

Don Cisternino: Stanley

Joseph Bass: Jack

A Long Beach Playhouse revival of Neil Simon’s comedy-drama. Directed by Phyllis Gitlin. Scenic design: Diane McDonald. Lighting design: Eugene McDonald. Costume design: Donna Fritsche. Sound design: Ron Wyand, Sylvia Aimerito, Lon Martin. Stage manager: Mary Duvall.