Neil Simon's
Pain and humor are strange bedfellows for how do you explain The Three Stooges or the laughter following a banana peel pratfall? Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound" juxtaposes that curious relationship between funny and sad as it chronicles the dissolution of the Jerome family just as its protagonist Eugene gets his first big break at becoming a professional comic writer. "Broadway Bound" represents a gifted writer's ability to tell a sad story in a humorous way. It mixes the young hero's bravado against an unknown future with the mature playwright's ability to look backward and chuckle at dark memories.Kate is the mother who has spent a lifetime caring for her family and traveling no farther than a subway could take her. Her family includes an aged and mentally rambling father, two adult sons ready to leave the nest, and a distant and aloof husband who is deep into an emotional attachment to another woman. Kate fairly radiates pain and barely controlled outrage in her scenes with husband Jack Jerome. Her relationship with her son is best revealed in a waltz around the dining room table. It's a memory sequence of the time she ballroom danced with George Raft and, as Eugene coaxes his mother into the moment, the scene comes alive with
As the play moves on he provides interaction with the audience, updating them with the scenes and brief summary of their families past. This was nicely done to show the audience the low class of the family, by having a bed was already a great accomplishment. The family being of the low class group, having nothing in the living room but the simple things; a dinning table, a cabinet, one sofa, and a simple little radio. This is when grandpa was coming home from the store, he took off his coat, gloves, shoes, hat, and he also kept on removing his sweaters, he had lose to ten different sweaters on. This made the scene really funny and the audience kept on laughing as he kept taking off sweater after sweater. There were a time were they tried to make the scene really funny by exaggerating the clothing a little. The lighting for these different setting were very similar and simple. Although everyone was in the scene and all the lights were on, not everyone was talking. The settings, 1949, all the props matched and looked as if it was that time. There were also times when all of the lights were on, this is when everyone was in the scene, Eugene and his brother were in their room, and mom and grandpa were in the living room. In the play the characters showed it by wearing very heavily insulated clothing. The HPU Theatre was small like the Kumu Kahua Theatre, but this theatre was very nice and well maintained. This stage was designed for three settings; Eugene's room, his older brother's room and the living room. They had twin sized beds, so small that when they had the scene were they were sleeping, half of their legs were sticking out.
Common topics in this essay:
Kahua Theatre,
Broadway Bound,
Gene DeFrancis,
Raft Eugene,
Jack Jerome,
,
broadway bound,
playwright's ability,
scene funny,
low class,
coat gloves,
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Acceptance Essays
