Princeton Summer Theater presents part two of Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical trilogy.
By: Janet Stern
PHOTO/ TIAN XIA
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Princeton native Chris Osander performs as Sergeant Merwin
J. Toomey and Rob Walsh portrays Eugene Morris Jerome, the playwright’s alter ego, in Princeton Summer Theater’s Biloxi Blues. |
A winning comedy contains uproarious one- liners but also endears us to its charactersthrough their increasingly hilarious foibles and eccentricities.
A well acted and directed comedy is able to convey those foibles and eccentricities because its characters remain consistently in character. The audience thus comes to recognize and eagerly anticipate their emerging identities.
Princeton Summer Theater’s production of Neil Simon’s Tony-award winning Biloxi Blues makes its characters’ identities the center of the comedy.
The play coming between Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound in Simon’s semi-autobiographical 1980s trilogy concerns naive World War II recruits from the northeast who we first meet en route to basic training in Biloxi, Miss. It is 1943, and this is their first time away from home. Cleverly converting a bunk into a train compartment, the actors simulate their train ride by bouncing and jouncing. In claustrophobic quarters, they begin to irritate one another with the quirks that come to individualize them.
Underscoring their youth and inexperience and that of all recruits the production reminds us that even those who may have joined up willingly to fight the Germans are shocked to discover that the first enemies they have to fight are each other. Says one character, "If the Germans only knew what was coming over, they’d look forward to this invasion."
Deftly directed by Marisol Rosa-Shapiro (also PST’s producing director), the ensemble circumvents the cliché inherent in works about platoons the inevitable assortment of types. The actors dodge these stereotypes by fixing with consistent movement and speech (although with inconsistent accents) the particularizing traits of each character. The accumulation of detail reinforces what we know about each. Thus, when we see legs and arms thrust out carelessly from a bunk, we know which character is sleeping there, even though we don’t see his face.
The characters’ individuality here is germane, because at the very age when these boys would normally be discovering their identities, they are forced into an environment that strips them away.
Our guide through this excruciating initiation is the budding writer Eugene Morris Jerome, played by PST veteran Rob Walsh. Walsh convincingly highlights early in Act 1 how young these boys are when he cannot hold back his adolescent laughter at his sergeant’s earthy enumerations of what belongs in a latrine. Commanded to explain his laughter, Eugene says that he has never heard so many words like that in one sentence.
Eugene, personified on stage and in film by Matthew Broderick, is the playwright’s alter ego. Walsh makes the part his own by adroitly combining adolescent smirk and self-absorption with an evolving sensitivity for those he may not understand but comes to see as worthy of compassion.
Eugene finds both comrade and critic in Epstein. Portrayed hilariously with nasal voice and stooped posture by Dan Kublick, Epstein suffers from stomach disorders and is humiliated by sergeant and recruits alike. But he finds strength in Talmudic philosophy, reason and logic: "The Army has its logic. I have my own."
From the start, Private Wykowski’s belligerence and racism are unflinchingly captured by actor John Hardin. We are not surprised when his voice begins to boom like a sergeant’s and his body automatically assumes perfect military position.
The would-be crooner Carney, endearingly portrayed by Andy Hoover, is wracked by youthful indecision, and yet we witness his struggle to know himself. Dismayed by Eugene’s superficial assessment of him in his diary, he tells Eugene, "You don’t really know me anyway."
As Selridge, Glenn Brown’s facial expressions and gestures are remarkably nuanced. His bravado masks his insecurities, and he calls out his mother’s name in his sleep. He sports the quintessential Army crewcut, foreshadowing what he becomes after the war.
In Act 2, the mood changes, but by now the audience is so attached to the characters that it follows them right into a melodrama enveloping Private Hennesey, touchingly enacted by Justin Levine. We have been laughing uproariously moments before, but now we watch in rapt silence as Hennesey suffers on command.
Chris Osander as Toomey, the bullying sergeant, exploits the recruits’ naiveté, barking sadistically and belittling them. But we fail to sympathize with him when we learn of his motivations. This part of the production flags, partly because we don’t see Toomey transforming the privates into combat-ready soldiers. In fact, they don’t even seem to be part of an Army base, and Toomey’s revelatory scene feels disconnected from those in the barracks. Toomey’s unraveling renders him borderline crazy without conveying the gravity of his desperation, and the southern accent that supposedly makes him alien to his recruits is rendered only sporadically.
Capably rounding out the cast are Heather May as Rowena, the accommodating prostitute, and Shannon Lee Clair as Daisy, the fresh-faced Catholic girl who wins Eugene’s heart. These talented actresses are also, respectively, the production’s versatile costume designer and its gifted set artist.
Biloxi’s sultriness is enhanced by sound designer William Busbee’s enveloping the actors with the noises of insects at night. Allen Grimm designed the lighting and evocative set: bunk beds in an interior of corrugated steel resembling a Quonset hut. But the play’s focus is most effectively reinforced by the plethora of period posters, pinups, albums, advertisements and magazine covers decorating the walls. The audience never forgets that the bigoted, smelly, curious, idealistic, aching young men who put them up are all individuals, holding onto their identities for dear life. And PST’s production honors recruits in every era by indelibly preserving those identities.
Biloxi Blues continues at the Hamilton Murray Theater on the Princeton University campus through July 8. Performances: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2, 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m.; Tickets cost $16-$18, $12 seniors, $10 students;(609) 258-7062; www.princetonsummertheater.org