Brighton Beach Memoirs at Citadel Theatr

By: Neil SimonDirected by: Scott PhelpsWhen: April 22nd thru May 24thWhere: 300 S. Waukegan Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045Run time: 1 hours 50 minutesAbout: Part one of Neil Simons autobiographical trilogy: a portrait of the writer as a young teen in 1937 living with his family in a crowded, lower middle-class Brooklyn walk-up. Eugene Jerome must cope with the mundane existence of his family life in Brooklyn: formidable mother, overworked father, and his worldly older brother Stanley. Throw into the mix his widowed Aunt Blanche, her two young (but rapidly aging) daughters and you have a recipe for hilarity, served up Simon-style. This bittersweet memoir evocatively captures the life of a struggling Jewish household where, as his father states "if you didn't have a problem, you wouldn't be living here."