Go see the stars of 'Broadway Bound'

Gramps (Ben Honeycutt) is that stereotypical 1940s family patriarch in Brighton Beach, an immigrant Brooklyn neighborhood. If Scandinavian, Croatian, Finnish or German, Gramps would be right at home on an Anacortes-based fishing boat or a Cascades-foothills logging camp. And so Neil Simon, that master of American innocuous domestic comedy (“The Odd Couple,” “Barefoot in the Park,” and 30 other plays and 30-plus more movies), finishes telling his origin story in “Broadway Bound,” opening Friday at Whidbey Playhouse in Oak Harbor.

This final part of a trilogy, after “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Biloxi Blues,” shows Eugene breaking from his family. His is the quintessential American story, that of the children of immigrants making it in their new homeland.

Eugene (the Neil Simon character, superbly played by Ethan Webb) and brother Stan (well done by Chris Kehoe) seek escape from cogs-in-the-wheel jobs by convincing CBS radio to hire them as a comedy writing team. Kehoe plays the older brother as an extroverted, confident and energetic character.

Eugene is the better writer, both dreamer and reflective. He is confident also, breaking the set’s fourth wall early to narrate to the audience, giving himself away as future playwright, explaining that Gramps doesn’t get his jokes and is the source of his jokes.

Just like in radio – and then TV shows, and if it was now, standup comedy – the boys do make it. The key scene has three generations of family gathered around the radio to hear the boys lines delivered by the host comedian Chubby Waters. The jokes remind family members of something, or someone, but it is the father Jack (excellent performance by Jim Reynolds) who names the the family as the source and butt of the humor, and not Brighton Beach neighbors or stereotypes. Reynolds fully inhabited his character, projecting a pathos of unease and anxiety as he inexorably moved toward his inevitable final exit.

This is a drama about comedy writers. There are lots of jokes, but this is more a story about the strains of three generations of a family living under one roof.

Director Dave Frazer calls the family dysfunctional in the program. Yes, but, this family is complex, full of contrasts, as the gene pool and unique personalities shape desires, needs and outlooks. They love each other and hurt each other, which is neither a contradiction nor a dysfunction.

Gramps is a socialist (Trotsky is now an obscure reference but much more a menace in his time than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now), but family struggle, not class struggle, is the universal conflict we – and the family – grow through, or don’t.

Every relationship in the family is tense: Gramps is long separated from his wife; she wants him to move to Miami with her. The sons are fledging, leaving their mother. Jack has long been unhappy with his wife, Kate (a stoic Becky LeMay). Gramps and the boys discuss it, but it’s not spoken between the parents. Then Kate confronts Jack. Loving is not easy and not loving is not easy and leaving is not easy. By the final curtain each of these themes plays out.

The play is also a tribute to Eugene’s mom, in an age before “Father Knows Best.” For a mom whose total role was cooking, cleaning and getting sons to school and husbands to work, Eugene’s last observation is touching: “She never considered that she sacrificed. She considered herself a pretty lucky woman. After all, she did once dance with George Raft.”

Raft was a minor key melody and theme for the young Kate, who was not as attractive as sister Blanche (Maddison Nuqui) but was a much better dancer. Kate has that memory, as she holds memories of her parents’ family and of her own.

“Broadway Bound” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. It plays through Sept. 22, Thurs-Sun. Tickets and times: 360-679-2237, whidbeyplayhouse.com.