Leading Jewish American playwright, and one time Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner for his play ‘Dinner with Friends’, Donald Margulies’s play ‘Brooklyn Boy’ tells an engaging, bittersweet ‘coming home’ story.

‘Brooklyn Boy’ starts with middle aged novelist Eric Weiss finally achieving the success he has been striving for so long. His semi-autobiographical novel Brooklyn Boy has made the bestseller list. He is living the high life, schlepping around doing guest spots on television talk shows, and signing autographs at book launches. In the midst of this ‘purple patch’ he has to return to his home town. His father Manny is in the final stages of his illness at the local Maimonides hospital. He goes to visit his father armed with a copy of his book, only to find that his former shoe salesman father is much more interested in when Eric will produce his first grandchild!

‘Brooklyn Boy’ combines drama of depth and substance with some feisty and fast Jewish humour. The play is staged as a series of tense encounters, with important players in his life that build on each other to create an emotional climax. The crux of the play is in the challenges that returning home brings for Weiss. Some of the big issues that Weiss has put to one side as he made his adult life come to the surface and the question becomes whether he can now deal with them.

Ever since Weiss left home after school to go to Columbia University, Weiss has played down having any religious beliefs or any strong Jewish identity and has even married out. Weiss meets up with Ira, his closest friend at school, who has since become orthodox. Ira tries to get Weiss to reconnect with his Jewish roots, and the two old friends argue heatedly. One of the play’s big dramatic scenes sees Ira trying to persuade Weiss to recite kaddish for his late father with Weiss reacting angrily, throwing his yarmulka onto the floor.

Anna Crawford’s debut Ensemble production is a forceful one. The cast serve Margulies’s colourful array of characters well. Brandon Burke is compelling in a demanding leading role that requires him to be on stage for the length of the performance. Michael Ross plays Weiss’s gruff, ailing father, and Daniel Mitchell plays his pushy old friend, Ira. Matilda Ridgeway is Alison, a precocious young woman eager to bed down a famous author after he flirts with her at a book signing. Lenora Smith plays two roles, Weiss’s distant wife, Nina, and his schmoozy Hollywood film producer, Melanie. The cast is rounded out well by Leigh Scully in a good cameo comic role as Tyler, an ambitious but not very bright young actor.

‘Brooklyn Boy’ plays the Ensemble Theatre, 78 McDougall Street, Kirribilli until March 6, 2010.