Neil Simon's 1983 play, Brighton Beach
Memoirs" is back on Broadway.  The new
Eugene Jerome, Neil Simon's alter ego, is
Noah Robbins.  He is making his debut in
BBM.  If you recall, Matthew Broderick
played the 15-year-old bright, sassy, Jewish
kid in the original show.

For those unfamiliar with the play, it centers on young Jewish "tsenerlingn"/"tsenerling" (teen)
Eugene Morris Jerome and his extended
family, living in a crowded home in the
Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn in 1937.
His father is overworked, and his mother, Kate, is overbearing.  His older brother,
Stanley, Kate's widowed sister, Blanche, and
her daughters, Nora and Laurie, share a
home.

Eugene steals the show and is given the
best lines.  He spends his time daydreaming
about a "beysbol" (baseball) career.  He must also cope with his family's "tsuris," his
awkward discovery of sex, and his developing identity as a "shrayber" (writer).  BBM contains some mild profanity
and some mild sexual terms.

If you can't get tickets, "zets zich avek" (sit
down and enjoy) these lines/quotes, with a
"bisl" Yiddish thrown in.

"vort" (word)

Stanley:  "It's puberty."
Eugene:  "It's what?"
Stanley:  "Puberty.  You never heard that
               word before? Don't you read
               books?"
Eugene:  "Yeah.  The Citadel:  by A. J.
               Cronin.  He never mentioned
               puberty."

"telvedik" (horny)--a term that can be used
for members of either sex.  According to
Michael Wex ("Just Say Nu"), If someone is  horny, you say that "der yaitser-horer iz bei im oyf."  (His yaitser-horeh is awake.)

"Ich vais nit."  (I don't know)

Stanley:  "How horny can you get?"
Eugene:  "I don't know, what's the
               highest score?"

"shprits" (shower)

Eugene:  "What if they took a shower
               together, Aunt Blanche and
               Nora?  If I could walk in and see
               that, I would thank God and
               become a rabbi."

"lebn" (life)
"naket" (naked)

Eugene:  "October the 2nd, 1937.  A historic
               moment in the life of Eugene
               Morris Jerome.  I have just seen
               the Golden Palace of the
               Himalayas.  Puberty is over. 
               Onwards and upwards!"
Note:  The "Golden Palace of the Himalayas
represents Eugene seeing a "naket" woman.

"liber" (life)
"shvesterkind" (female cousin); kuzine

Eugene:  "What's wrong with being in love
               with your own cousin?"
Stanley:  "Because it's against the laws of
               nature.  If she was your stepsister,
               it would be dirty, but it would be
               okay.  But you can't love your own
               cousin."

Eugene:  "I'm not playing.  I'm writing."
Nora:      "Well, do it quietly."

"tsukunft" (future)

Blanche:  "I was never concerned about
                your leaving me.  It was your
                future I was worried about."
Nora:     "It was my future.  Why couldn't
              I have something to say about it?"

"kolir" (color)
"blayer" (pencil)
"bild" (picture)

Stanley:  "I have a major problem in my
               life.  I haven't got time to describe
               girls masturbating for you."
Eugene:  "Just draw me a picture.  I brought
               a pencil.  You want crayons, maybe
               you should do it in color."

"velt" (world)

Eugene:  "I'm putting all this down in my
               memoirs, so if I grow up twisted
               and warped, the world will know
               why."


"kikh" (kitchen)

Kate:  "What would you tell your father if
          he comes home, and I was dead on
          the kitchen floor?"
Eugene:  "I'd say, 'don't go in the kitchen,
          Pop.'"

"shpanung' (tension)
"leber" (liver)

Eugene:  "The tension in the air was so thick
               you could cut it with a knife,
               which is more than I could say for
               the liver."

"arbet" (work)
"harts" (heart)
"a farshlepter krenk" (malingering sickness)

Eugene:  "She {Laurie] gets all this special
               treatment because the doctor says
               she has kind-of-a-flutter in her
               heart.  So, I have to do all her
               work.  She'd better have a bad
               heart, or I'm gonna kill her one
               day."

"lokhshen" (spaghetti)
The Italian singer and actor, Enrico Fink,
says that "lokhshen" noodles is also the
Yiddish word for spaghetti..

Eugene:  "All the best Yankees are Italian.
               My mother makes spaghetti with
               catsup.  What chance do I have?"

"tate" (dad)

Eugene:  "What do you expect me to say
               when you tell me that pop
               whacks-off?"

"puter" (butter)
"frimorgn" (morning)

Kate:        "Get a quarter pound of butter."

Eugene:  "I bought a quarter pound of
               butter this morning. Why don't
               you buy a half pound at a time?"

Kate:      "And suppose the house burned
              down this afternoon?  Why do I
              need an extra quarter pound of
              butter?"

Eugene:  "If my mother taught logic in high
                school, this would be some weird
                country."

"Eugene:  "Fired?  You mean for good?"

Stan:        "You don't get fired temporarily.
                It's a lifetime firing."

"beyn" (bone)
"haldz" (throat)
"leber" (liver)

Eugene:  [choking]
               "Ma, I think I have a bone in my
               throat."

Kate:      "There are no bones in liver!"

"kaledz"/"kaledzh" (college)

Jack:      "Only a four-year college education
              is equal to a four-year college
              education."

Stanley:  "I don't think Abraham LIncoln
               went to college."

"shlingen" (to swallow)
"ekldik"/"khaloshesdik" (disgusting)

Kate:     "You sit there and finish your liver."

Eugene:  "I can't swallow it.  It won't go
               down.  Remember the Lima Bean
               catastrophe last month?  Does
               anyone want to see a repeat of
               that disgusting episode?"

Jack:       "Why does he always talk like it's
               a Sherlock Holmes story?"

"yarfn" (to throw)
"marants" (orange - fruit)
"yam" (sea)
"kavene" (watermelon)

Jack:  "My father always used to say, 'Throw
          your problems out to sea and the
          answers will wash back up on shore."

Nora:  "Did they?"

Jack:  "Not in Brighton Beach.  Orange peels
          and watermelon pits washed up.
          That's why it's good to take someone
          who knows how to give advice."

"nomen" (name)

Eugene:  "Eugene Morris Jerome....It is the
               second worst name ever given to a
               male child.  The first worst is
               Haskell Fleischmann..."

"geboryn" (born)

Eugene [about his father], "He was born at
               the age of forty-two..."

"shpanung" (tension/anxiety)
"meser" (knife)

Eugene:  "The tension in the air was so thick
               you could cut it with a knife.
               Which is more than I could say for
               the liver."

"ayzkrem" (ice cream)
"gezunt vern" (to recover/get well)
"tsores" (misery)

Eugene:  "It's amazing how quick you
                recover from misery when
                someone offers you ice cream."

"Shrayber" (writer)
"laydn" (to suffer)
"naket" (naked)

Eugene:  "How am I going to become a
               writer, if I don't know how to
               suffer?  Actually, I'd give up
               writing if I could see a naked
               girl while I was eating ice cream."

"harts"(heart)
"moyekh" (brain)

Eugene:  "You don't get too far talking to
                Laurie.  Sometimes I think the
                flutter in her heart is actually in
                her brain."

"visnhaft" (science)
"kroyt" (cabbage)

Eugene:  "Liver and cabbage, a Jewish
               medieval torture.  My friend,
               Marty Gagorio, an A student in
               science, told me that cooked
               cabbage can be smelled farther
               than sound traveling for seven
               minutes."

"kopveytik" (headache)

Eugene:  "Attention, ladies and gentlemen!
               Today's game will be delayed
               because of my aunt Blanche's
               headache..."

"brist" (breasts)
"ehrnst" (serious)

Eugene:  "If I had my choice between a
               tryout with the Yankeees and
               actually seeing Nora's bare breasts
               for two-and-a-half seconds, I
               would have some serious thinking
               to do."

"shpayzkrom" (grocery store)

Eugene [to mother]
              "I'm always going to the store. 
              When I grow up, that's all I'll be
              trained to do:  go to the store."

Eugene:  "I love tense moments!  Especially
                when I'm not the one they're all
                tense about."

"lekekh"/"kikhen" (cake)

Kate:   "STOP THAT YELLING!  I HAVE A
           CAKE IN THE OVEN!"

"perl" (pearl)

Kate:  "Pearls are like people.  They like to
          go out and be seen once in a while."

"kleyd" (dress)

Kate:  "How many beatings from Momma
           did I get from things that you did?
           How many dresses did I go without
           so that you could look like someone
           when you went out?  I was the
           workhorse and you were the pretty
           one.  You have no right to talk to me
           like that.  No right."  [to sister]

"moyl" (mouth)

Stanley [to Eugene]

            "How'd you like an official American
            League Baseball in your mouth?"

"eytse"/"aitzeh" (advice)

Stanley [to Eugene]

          "Let me give you a piece of advice:
          When you're going through puberty,
          don't start with anyone in your own
          house."
-----------------------------------------
Marjorie Wolfe agrees with actor, Jack
Lemon:  "Neil [Simon] has the ability to
write characters--even the leading
characters that we're supposed to root for--that are absolutely flawed.  They have
foibles.  They have faults..  But, they are
human beings.  They are not all bad or all
good; they are people we know."

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