Setting up certain and striking resonance with Itamar Moses’ spare and enigmatic “The Four of Us” at the Old Globe, Donald Margulies’ emotional, character-laden and fathomable “Brooklyn Boy” opened Feb. 9 at San Diego Repertory Theatre.
Both plays concern writers who are suddenly elevated to superstar status and the ways in which their outrageous success estranges them from friends and family.
The major theme of “Brooklyn Boy” is the writer’s inability to listen to and communicate with those who mean the most to him. His neediness is deep and inadmissible, especially to himself. When he returns to his Brooklyn roots to attend his irascible father’s dying, the Brooklyn Boy, Eric Weiss (James Newcomb, an adjunct professor at UC San Diego), is played upon like a violin whose vibrations penetrate his core loneliness and make him realize how hollow his success really is.
A film industry producer (gum-chewing, bespectacled and hysterically funny Deborah Van Valkenburgh), a Hollywood actor set to play Eric in the Paramount film (Andrew Kennedy), and an adoring, potential one-night stand (Christy Yael) reinforce this; so do his soon-to-be ex-wife (Van Valkenburgh in subdued mien) and his dying father (the excellent Robert Levine).
Weiss’ third novel (the first two were literary, critically praised, esoteric and largely remaindered) is based on his childhood and titled “Brooklyn Boy.” It is a huge success, No. 11 on the bestseller list, and furthermore, like Benjamin’s book in Moses’ play, the deal includes a film.
The play’s first scene takes place in Manny Weiss’s hospital room. Eric seeks his father’s approval, bringing him a copy of “Brooklyn Boy” and telling him of its No. 11 ranking on the New York Times’ list.
“There’s an 11?” his father asks. “I thought it only went to ten. Good thing they made the list longer.”
Margulies’ play is rife with such humor. And Eric is both recipient and deliverer, especially in his scene at his ex’s apartment, when he tells her she looks marvelous, then adds, “You’re supposed to languish and look like s***,” and she replies, “I’ve waited all my life to be this miserable.” The tragedy is that they still love each other.
The play’s most telling scenes involve Eric’s childhood friend and Bar Mitzvah classmate Ira Zimmer, portrayed with great heart by the extraordinary Matthew Henerson. Ira is perhaps most instrumental in Eric’s growth. One leaves the play assured of Eric’s potential to be a more grounded and compassionate human being. One might quibble over the final scene of reconciliation, but there is no doubt of its efficacy and its ability to move us.
San Diego Repertory Theatre associate artistic director Todd Salovey, himself a Brooklyn boy, stages the work beautifully, steering it away from excess, illuminating the deeper recesses of Eric’s character. Newcomb, an Oregon Shakespeare veteran better known locally as a fight director, gives a splendid performance that allows us to see the chinks in Eric’s armor.
Born in Brooklyn in 1954, Pulitzer Prize winner (“Dinner with Friends”) Margulies is also the author of “Sight Unseen” and “Collected Stories.” “Brooklyn Boy” is heartfelt, warm and intimate, qualities that are enhanced by its setting in the reconfigured Space at San Diego Repertory Theatre. The theater walls and entry become part of Giulio Cesare Perrone’s Brooklynesque scenic design. The theme of longing for home and a place in others’ lives is deeply moving, common to all of us, who long ago came from elsewhere.
“Brooklyn Boy” continues through March 4 at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, in the Lyceum Space Theatre, San Diego Repertory Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza. Tickets ($28-$46) are available by visiting www.sandiegorep.com or calling (619) 544-1000.