It’s back to the beach at BPA

Published 8:00 am Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Neil Simon’s ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ opens.

It’s a long way from Bainbridge to Brooklyn in every sense: the history, the personalities, the food.

So how is it that Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” opens on the BPA Playhouse stage Thursday evening?

Of the plays veteran Seattle director Ellen Graham submitted to BPA, this was the one chosen. She wasn’t surprised.

“It has broad appeal and marked a turning point for Neil Simon in his writing,” Graham said of her favorite Simon play, which won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play of 1983. “This has more heart, a depth. The characters are well-rounded and interesting people.”

Simon introduces the Jerome family in this, the first of his semi-biographical trilogy that includes “Biloxi Blues” and “Broadway Bound.” From his perch within his 1937 home in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach area, 14-year-old Eugene (Jake Mallove) analyzes his loud, loving extended clan and dreams about becoming a comedy writer.

The family is poor yet compassionate, worrying about their relatives in Europe and the grim realities they face on the cusp of World War II, all the while wondering how they’ll keep their own bodies and souls together.

With humor and poignance, Simon’s characters meet life’s challenges in the only way they know: head on. They yell, they make up and they drive each other nuts as passionately as they protect and love one another. They believe family is everything and always there for you, no matter where that family is.

For a cast to confidently transition into these characters, “You have to know where it comes from,” said Graham, who held open auditions and was “pretty specific” about what she wanted.

“We in the Northwest don’t understand that rhythm and that pace,” she said. “It’s not mean or ill-willed. That’s not a world we know much about. I had to get (the cast) used to it and be honest with it and not be caricatures.”

A cast member brought in a friend from the East Coast to help.

Through movie clips and lots of discussion, the actors learned phrasing and accents and slipped into the skin of their characters.

“We just talked about that world where people shout to communicate. And where, as someone said, if you’re Jewish, you have some relative suffering somewhere,” Graham said. “That’s an important through line in this play. This Jewish family has nothing, but (they’ll) say, ‘We’ll put them up here.”’

“I love the role I play, the strength of it,” said Kathryn Minturn, who is Kate, the mother. “It’s hard…I have to be judicious about it. It’s kind of exploratory for me.”

To get that accent down, Minturn studied “My Cousin Vinny” and “Crossing Delancey,” where she zeroed in on the grandmother.

“She had the best effect on me. I needed to hear a woman’s voice,” Minturn said.

Justin Lynn, a Bainbridge High School grad, is drawn to the way his character, older brother Stanley, tells a story.

“He makes it big. He makes it grand,” said Lynn, who had never heard accents like these before. “He’s not afraid to be who he is. He’s big, but you love him at the same time. He’s sweet. He wants to stick up for what he believes in. He makes his mom and dad proud.”

Lynn calls this “a very truthful play.”

“It’s funny, but it’s heartbreaking at points. The love that the family has,” he says. “I think people need to see this show.”

Although the accent gave him pause, the largeness of his character did not; Lynn is himself the youngest of a family of seven.

“We’re all big,” he laughed. “We talk big.”

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Simon says

The Bainbridge Performing Arts production of Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” runs May 12-28 at the Playhouse. A pay-what-you-can-preview is 7:30 p.m. May 11. Regular showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday.

The production, with one intermission, is suitable for “PG-13” audiences. Tickets are $9 for students, $15 for seniors and $18 for adults. They are available at the Playhouse on Madison Avenue, by calling 842-8569 or online at www.theplayhouse.org.