Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Prolific playwright Neil Simon made his name with a long and successful series of character- driven comedies, including The Odd Couple, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, and Plaza Suite — but with this play he felt the need for a change of pace, and set out to produce a zany, … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily News Theatergoers are rarely able to observe characters growing up over the course of several plays. Shakespeare’s Prince Hal provides one notable exception. Playwright Neil Simon offers another. In his Brighton Beach Memoirs, we met Eugene Jerome, the hilariously genial youngster in 1940s New York, torn between becoming a professional baseball … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze For good reason, playwright Neil Simon has been loved by the theatergoing public for decades. For even better reason, his “Brighton Beach Memoirs” is widely considered to be among his best plays. Read more… Now running through August 15.
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter The last of Neil Simon’s trilogy of quasi-autobiographical accounts of his coming-of-age years in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn, Broadway Bound stands among his plays as perhaps the most free from easy nostalgia, and therefore the most honest. In this sturdy 1986 drama, the requisite comedy arrives more or less … Read more