Brighton Beach Memoirs Act One, Part 1 Summary & Analysis

Summary

The play opens in 1937 in Brighton Beach, New York, which is a lower-middle-class neighborhood mainly home to Jewish, Irish, and German immigrants. Inside the house, Kate Jerome, a housewife, and her younger widowed sister, Blanche Morton, sew. Laurie, Blanche’s thirteen-year-old daughter, who has a weak heart, studies. Eugene Jerome, Kate’s fourteen-year-old son, is outside throwing a baseball against a wall, pretending to be pitching in a real game. The thwacking of the ball gives Blanche a headache, and Kate yells at Eugene to stop. With much grumbling, Eugene “announces” a delay in the game and comes inside. As the women and Eugene talk, Eugene intermittently addresses the audience to share background about the family. The Mortons came to live with the Jeromes almost four years ago, after Blanche’s husband, Dave, died and left them penniless. Eugene’s father, Jack, must support everyone though Blanche swears she will pay them back for all the help even though she is unable to get a job due to her asthma and poor eyesight.

Blanche’s older daughter, sixteen-year-old Nora, returns home with some news. A producer came to her dance class that day and offered her a part in a Broadway musical. Blanche believes Nora should stay in school and get her high school diploma, but Nora longs for a career on the stage and wants to earn money to help out the family. Blanche can’t decide if she should allow Nora to audition and says they will ask Jack.

Alone in their bedroom, Nora and Laurie discuss the situation. Nora feels upset that her uncle gets to make such an important decision about her life. She misses their father, and the two girls reminisce about him. Nora remembers looking in his coat pocket every night when she was young because he always brought surprises for her. Nora wishes they had their own home. The girls resolve to start saving money toward this goal.

Eugene’s eighteen-year-brother, Stanley, comes back early from work because he got fired. Stanley spoke up when his boss docked the janitor’s pay for accidentally ruining merchandise. When the boss ordered him to clean up, Stanley swept a pile of dirt onto his boss’s shoes. The boss demanded Stanley either apologize or not bother returning to work. Stanley wants to stick to his principles but also wants to talk his choice over with his father because the family needs the money.

Analysis

Through setting, plot, and dialogue Brighton Beach Memoirs quickly establishes itself as a family drama. The opening scene introduces half of the characters, with the remaining making their appearance soon thereafter. No one outside of the family ever sets foot on the stage, locating the play in the domestic sphere. Eugene is the first character to speak, and this choice is both deliberate and apt because Eugene rests at the heart of the story. Through intermittent moments during which Eugene “breaks the fourth wall” and directly addresses the audience, his point of view and his thoughts are revealed to the audience. Although Eugene is not present in every scene, and the audience observes events and learns information to which he is not privy, Eugene’s sensibility filters the audience’s understanding of the family dynamics and values. For instance, Eugene provides the background about how the Jerome and Morton families came to live under the roof of one house. Understanding the underpinnings of the current drama helps the audience decipher some of the simmering tension in this act, for instance, why Eugene sounds bitter at having to do all the chores even though he knows that Laurie has a weak heart.

The opening scene of the book jumps off the pages in its liveliness and emphasizes an important motif of the play: the power of the imagination. Eugene sees himself as a star ballplayer or a writer. Eugene needs his imagination to help him escape the physical and mental confines of this close-knit family. Eugene shares a bedroom with his older brother, he has his movements constrained by a mother with an endless list of chores and errands, and he’s trapped by the demands of a maturing body that leads him to lust after his older cousin. Each time that he attempts to flee into his fantasies, however, he is yanked back into real life by a request. This technique is highlighted by his “announcement” when he has to leave his World Series fantasy early in Act One. It not only provides a means to break back to reality but also emphasizes how much he is at the beck and call of his family members.

The initial part of the play introduces two of the main plot conflicts: Nora’s potential audition and Stanley’s decision concerning his job. Both characters make clear what they would do if it were only up to them. Both also understand they may face pushback in the form of family members who disagree with them. Stanley and Nora must consult on their futures with Jack, the former by choice and the latter unwillingly, which clarifies the traditional nature of the household.

Next section Act One, Part 2