Biloxi Blues
Biloxi Blues
By Neil Simon
Directed by Stephen Pugh
Starring Adam Delmedico, Joe Rochel, and Eddy Coppens
Theater Downtown, Orlando FL</strong>
Take any random 18 year old boy, give him a rifle and a hooker, and you’ve made him a man. Take any random 18 year Jewish kid and stick him the Deep South, and you’ve got a comedy. Success dims Neil Simon’s sensibilities in the eyes of some, but this semi-serious exploration the Army’s training methods and a young man coming of age is one of his finest works. Under the direction of Stephen Pugh (who played Epstein way back in ‘01) just about every jokes comes across with full force, and every painful moment hurts the audiences much as it hurts the characters.
Eugene Morris Jerome (Delmedico) has 4 life goals – get laid, fall in love, become a writer, and not get shot, but that still doesn’t make him the protagonist. The central conflict in Biloxi Blues lies between Old Army Sgt Toomey (Rochel) and over-principled Arnold Epstein (Coppens.) Toomey is determined to make good solider out of the raw recruits, and does so by stripping them of individual personality and replacing it with the Army issued one of unquestioning loyalty. Epstein feels the world should be decent and companionate, and he wants to lead by example. This mainly keeps him on latrine duty for most of his training, and draws the ire of everyone around him.
Supporting the main action are a tribe of ethnically diverse good old boys – Wykowski (Matthew Davidson) plays the brutal Pole with a chip on his shoulder, Selridge (Marcus Carrasquillo, another ‘02 alum) is the go-with-the-flow type, and Hennessey (Greg Nappo) the Black Irish loser. There are only two females drifting through this boy’s night out, but they knock off two plot points. Sarah Lockard play Rowena, the very sexy and accommodating prostitute who draws the line at army boots in bed, and Pamela Stone as Daisy Hannigan, the sweet southern girl that fulfills Eugene’s need for romance.
The concerns of this story are all human; the causes of the war, the holocaust, and military discipline are just the backdrop to the story, not forces to be challenged. The war is, the Army is, and life is. It’s the getting through that matters, and Jerome knocks off his goals one-two-three while mastering the art of the push up. It may seem pointless, but pushups are how we defeated the Nazis, and it’s how we’ll defeat the Taliban. Just don’t ask me why.
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