"THE world doesn't survive without families" says Kate Jerome, the archetypal Jewish Momma played by Carole King in Peter Sheridan's production of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs at the Andrews Lane Theatre in Dublin. It is not an especially arresting thought, but it is about as profound as the play gets, and it explains the attraction of the piece. It is a serenade to the idea of the family, presided over by a paterfamilias as near to God in his wisdom and patience as it is possible to get this side of the pearly gates. Or, more precisely, it is a hymn to the extended family, a lost ideal in American life. If it works at all in Ireland, it is because we, too, have suffered the same loss and may be tempted by the same stirrings of nostalgia.
,The problem with Brighton Beach Memors, though, is that in spite of its autobiographical origins it is very hard to avoid the feeling that its characters are drawn not so much from life as from other plays. In horse racing parlance it is by Death of a Salesman, out of The Glass Menagerie. It gets its genes for self sacrificing Jewish father struggling through the hungry 1930s to be ultimately reconciled to aberrant son from the former, and for memory play in which wise cracking narrator tells an attempt to marry off an ageing woman from the latter. As sometimes happens to even the most skilful of horse breeders, all the intangible qualities of the parents real pathos, deep seated compassion, the tang of human struggle - get lost.
As a playwright, Simon has some wonderful qualities - a delicate ear for speech, an impeccable feeling for the rhythm of a story, an ability to give the use of a very complicated stage set an air of almost casual ease. Those qualities are all on display in this tale of an extended family of seven eking out a fraught but ultimately contented existence in Brooklyn on the eve of the second World War. You know from the beginning to the end that you are in safe hands.
And that, as well as being the play's strength is also its weakness. Its keynote is reassurance, its key absence risk. From time to time, dark forces - incestuous desire, economic exploitation, ethnic conflict, youthful rebellion, even the Holocaust - make their presence known. But at every stage, we know that they will be kept within limits. It is not just that everything ends in happy resolution, but that we do not doubt for an instant that it will do so. Whenever grief or pain or wildness threaten, nice Mr Simon is whispering in our ears: "Don't worry, you'll be safe. I promise I won't go too far."
In formal terms, the reassuring whisper is delivered by having the play's conflicts worked out, not really between the characters, but between the narrative on the one hand and the drama on the other. We are led into and out of the drama by Eugene, both the 15 year old son of the family and, explicitly, the author's youthful self. He is a tourist guide who takes you through an unfamiliar and sometimes mildly threatening landscape, letting you know that however worrying it might sometimes seem, the route is well worked out and everything has been taken care of in advance.
He takes us into his confidence and tells us all his secrets, so we know that there will be no hidden traps in the narrative. Father may be driven to a heart attack by the cruel demands of making ends meet. Mother and her beloved sister Blanche may say some nasty things to each other. Cousin Nora may want to run away and become a showgirl. Big brother Stanley may lose his week's wages in a poker game. Nasty Mr Hitler may be threatening the Jews of Europe. But the family will handle it all. In the end, even the Holocaust comes, within the frame of the play, they seem like just another little crisis for the family to cope with.
Peter Sheridan's production for Red Kettle, helped by Ben Hennessy's clever set, is smoothly paced and skilful, handling with remarkable assurance the need for five different playing areas on a relatively small stage. It goes entirely with the grain of a play, neither adding to its weaknesses nor subtracting from its strengths.
As an actress, Carole King is perfectly fine without being anything to write a great pop ballad about. She has a strong, almost rugged, presence and, of course, a rich deep voice, full of character and experience. But she also seems strangely detached from her interlocutors, playing her own role without acting the whole play in the way that a really good actor will.
The other performances are all that they can be accurate and disciplined, but without enough substance in the text to be either very moving or very funny. They are dominated by Owen Sharpe's impressive Eugene, with just the air of brash and callow self confidence that lets the audience know for sure that there will be nothing in the play that a smart 15 year old can't handle. As the long suffering father, John Hewitt adds an even more comforting serenity to a perfectly safe journey, a gentle ride over the rough places of the human heart in a well sealed, air conditioned vehicle.
