He’s a horny Jewish teenager, and he wants to be a baseball player or a professional writer.
It’s 1937 in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the country is still in the grip of the Depression and on the brink of war.
In dealing with chaotic times and chaotic hormones, life is not easy for 15-year-old Eugene Jerome, who has family concerns in the Neil Simon play “Brighton Beach Memoirs.”
The Bakersfield College production runs from April 30-May 9. All 8 p.m. performances will be held in BC’s Indoor Theater, and BC theater professor Jennifer Sampson directs the play.
“This is a coming-of-age story,” said Sampson. “This is about a boy growing up and all of the things boys are obsessed with: girls, sports, etc.”
The turbulent adolescence of Eugene (Nick Ono) is matched by the turbulence of his family problems. Eugene has a crush on his older cousin, Nora (Valerie Cormack), who wants to accept an offer to dance on Broadway but faces the disapproval of her mother, Blanche (Jenny Hatzman), a woman who has been lost ever since her husband’s death.
After her husband’s death, Blanche had to move in with her two daughters Nora and Laurie (Katy Michelle Lewis) into her sister Kate’s house. Kate (Jaclyn Taylor) is the mother of Eugene and Eugene’s elder brother, Stanley (Steven Chase).
Blanche is uncomfortable with the living situation, plus she has to deal with a rebellious teenage daughter and a younger daughter with a “heart flutter.” Stanley recently gambled away the $17 the family needs each week and is planning to enlist in the Army so he won’t have to face his father with the truth.
Eugene feels like an indentured servant with his loving but commandeering mother sending him to the grocery all the time. Eugene’s father Jack (Beigher Taylor) is juggling two jobs and recently suffered a heart attack.
“This play has universal appeal,” said Nick Ono, 19, undeclared BC student. “Everybody’s been a kid. It’s very funny, and it’s not depressing: You get to see this kid with lots of energy who wants to join the Yankees grow throughout the play,” he said.
During a rehearsal, Sampson coached Ono to keep incorporating various ball tricks into his performance and added, “If you drop it, we’ll be in trouble” as Ono caught the ball backhanded several times over.
After working with Ono, Hatzman and Cormack on various stage movements, Sampson soon remarked that the greatest challenge of working on “Memoirs” was the Brooklyn accent.
“We worked for four weeks on the accent,” Sampson said. “The Brooklyn accent has a very specific sound.”
The actors had definite perceptions of their characters. Of Kate, Jaclyn Taylor, local Bakersfield actor, said that the character is overbearing and loud, but she is truly loving and protective of her family.
“She’s the matriarch and loves in a stern way,” said Taylor.
The character of Jack, the father, was challenging for Beigher Taylor, a local actor who was a member of Major League Improv in Bakersfield and also works at Klassen Corporation, an architectural and construction business, also in Bakersfield.
“Jack is grounded, and I have to be less excited and frenetic. I have to rein back my energy,” Taylor said.
Speaking of Laurie, Katy Michelle Lewis, 18, BC psychology and communications major, says that her bookish character is supposed to be about 13 but is made to feel much younger and is pampered. According to Valerie Cormack, 19, BC mathematics major, her Nora is a recalcitrant teen, but the character yearns for warmth from her mother.
Steven Chase, 18, BC undeclared, called his Stanley a “disappointment child.” Jenny Hatzman said her character Blanche is a “pivotal” character who must grab her chance to take care of herself and her daughters.
Tickets for “Brighton Beach Memoirs” are $5 for students, seniors and BC staff and $8 for general admission. Tickets can be purchased at the door.