Broadway Bound
Broadway Bound
By Neal Simon
Directed by Larry Stallings
Starring Josh Wieder, Eric Kuritzky, and Jacqueline Levine
The Center Players, Maitland FL</strong>
Write a story about a slightly dysfunctional family in Brighton Beach, and whatever your intentions were at the beginning, it’s you and your family that fill the pages when you’re done. Neil Simon excelled at capturing that post war second generation Yiddish experience, and “Broadway Bound” explores success and infidelity and shifting family priorities. Simon’s proxy here is Eugene (Wieder). He aspires to write comedy and pops off material as good as any Bonkerz show while his brother Stanley (Alex Carroll) plugs their nascent talents to CBS Radio. Grandpa Ben (Joe L. Smith) still reverses Trotsky even as his daughter Blanche (Sherri DeWitt) disappoints him by marrying rich. His other daughter Kate (Levine) plays the ultimate Jewish mother while her garment cutter husband Jack (Kuritzky) clumsily cheats on her. It’s hard to conceal anything, walls are built for eavesdropping and scandal flies faster in Brighton Beach than it does at News Corp. Jack’s secret may be scandalous, but Kate had one of her own: as a teen, she blew of grandpa’s Shiva to dance with George Raft in a bar and to this day its mix of shame and pride. When you move between societies, your priorities must change as well. In the old country, the insular shtetl was the only protection Jews had; in the new country that protection comes from assimilation and financial success. The old folks are stuck in central Europe, the young claw their way through America. Hilarity ensues!
There’s a funny side to this show and a serious side. Eugene and Stanley drive the funny side, their razor sharp wit epitomizes Yiddish self depreciation. About half the jokes connect; Wieder has the intonation in place but needs to get his timing down. Carroll is enthusiastic and a great head cheerleader for the pair, his laughs are more consistent but he never feels particularly Jewish. Maybe goys slipped him into the family when his Kate was distracted. On the serious side, Kuritzky and Levine’s failed marriage made perfect sense – he had no good answer for his sin and his punishment was this: she takes him back but never addresses him by name again. Hubby whines “If I killed a man you’d stand by me” but that of course is a lesser crime. Their children can’t get their heads around this loveless relation, but give them a few year and few upsets of their own and it will pour out of their pens. Everyone has a shame to hide – incontinence, infidelity, and worst of all – writers block. Amending 6000 years of tradition only give Simon more rocks to these Jews he’s driven up a tree.
Bonnie Sprung’s set feels wonderfully claustrophobic and you can imagine the overpowering scent of lilac powder and cabbage. I spent many a Sunday sitting primly on that over stuffed horse hair furniture and know that fear of scandal isn’t exclusively Jewish. Every culture has it and it’s just that the level of what triggers social rejection is a little looser here today. Eugene and Stanley sin in their parents eyes as well, they mine their own culture for material to sell – Dad sees it as humiliation; the boys see it as success. But sometimes you need to air out the linen closet and run a little yard sale. Let the neighbors see we’re all the same.
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