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'Brighton Beach Memoirs' By Robert Miller Special to the Tidings Neil Simon's celebrated autobiographical play, "Brighton Beach Memoirs"(l982), receives an ingratiating presentation now at Actors' Theatre in Talent, as directed by Michael Meyer. The playwright dedicates it "To my parents, grandparents, brother, cousins, aunts, uncles, and especially those who endured the pain, insecurities, fears, joys, love and fellowship of New York City in the Depression Years." And so we get to know the Jerome family - Jacob "Jack," the Jewish patriarch; Kate, his wife; Eugene (15) and Stanley (18), their sons; Blanche Norton, Kate's sister, and Laurie (13) and Nora (16), her daughters. The script calls for a wooden frame house in a lower-middle income area inhabited mostly by Jews, Irish, and Germans. Tracie Ashby's set design cleverly meets the requirements - a dining room (with exit to the kitchen) and living-room. Then on a raised level at the back are bedrooms for the two boys and two girls. Also there is an imaginary pitcher's mound off to one side. Although the period is September, 1937, the playwright tweaks history when Jack says that "Hitler's already moved into Austria. In a couple of months the whole world will be in it" (at war). Austria and Czechoslovakia were actually occupied by Germany in 1938, with Poland being conquered in 1939, thus bringing Great Britain and France into the war in Europe. When Jack says, "What God gives us to deal with, we will deal with," and "If you're Jewish, you've got a cousin suffering somewhere in the world," he doubtless has in mind his Polish cousin and family who might flee from Poland to the United States. There is suffering enough already, however, on his own doorstep: his eldest son, Stan, has been fired, on a matter of principle; his niece Nora wants approval from her reluctant mother or him to appear as a dancer in a Broadway musical called "Abracadabra tension that flares between sisters Kate and Blanche; Laurie being coddled and pampered because of a supposed heart flutter; and Eugene aroused to the pangs and pleasures of puberty with enlightenment from his big brother. ("Brothers can talk to each other the way fathers and sons never do. I never knew a thing about girls until my brother taught me," Jack confesses aside to Stan.) Yes, times are tough. When Del Mars Party Favors goes bankrupt, Jack loses his part-time job; he is angry at not being paid off. Kate suggests he go to the temple and pray all day Saturday. "There's men in that temple who've been praying for forty years. You know how many prayers have to get answered before my turn comes up?" he asks. "Your turn'll come up," she soothes him. "God has time for everybody." With the worst of timing, Stan loses his pay at poker. Jeff Lewis as Eugene, whippersnapper-cum-narrator, is impish and ebullient and comes close to stealing the show. His desire to play baseball for the Yankees or the Cubs or the Red Sox or maybe possibly the Tigers is uppermost, but he figures he'll be a writer like Ring Lardner and sedulously recounts in his "Memoirs" everything that happens, so that if he grows up all twisted and warped, the world will know why. (This role is shared with Karus Marshall Walsch, who plays it on even days). Mike Evans is a handsome Jack, a strong and sympathetic head of the family, who uses his voice excellently. And Nicholas Walsch, who graduated from Phoenix High School as an honor thespian, is the very believable big brother Stan, and admirable in the respect he has for his father. As Kate, Deb Note-Farwell is the feisty Jewish matriarch to a T, even down to her prejudices (i.e., the Irish Murphys who live across the street). She brooks no nonsense and is up to all of Eugene's tricks, and yet is the soul of gentleness to her husband. Judith Rosen as sister Blanche Norton movingly evokes a woman so wrapped up in her husband Dave that, when he died, she didn't know how to be a mother to her daughters and now is over-protective of them. Tai Desiree Sammons bubbles over excitedly as Nora Norton when she tells the family of her chance to be in a Broadway show, then crumbles touchingly when opposition is voiced, but holds her own in the highly emotional exchange with her mother late in the play. Natasha Barnes as Laurie Norton, probably the least attractive character in the play, manipulates her sickness, though pampered and indulged by Kate and Blanche to the degree that it doesn't promote a good sisterly relationship. Eugene thinks the flutter in Laurie's heart is really in her brain. (Lindsey Barraclough shares this role, playing it on even days). "Brighton Beach Memoirs," then, is a very human family comedy. It plays through May 4 on Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. For tickets and information, call 535-5250. LINKS: REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. DAILY TIDINGS: Main | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -