Act I

Brighton Beach Memoirs opens in September, 1937, in the Jerome household. The Jeromes live in a lower middle class neighborhood in Brighton Beach, New York. It is about 6:30 in the evening and fourteen-year-old Eugene Morris Jerome is playing a semi-imaginary game of baseball outside. As his ball hits the house, Eugene's aunt, Blanche Morton, gets a headache. Eugene's mother Kate yells at her son to stop the game and come inside. Eugene reluctantly comes inside. He tells the audience that he wants to play professional baseball or be a writer. He is sent upstairs, and he begins writing in his journal.

Eugene tells the audience that his Aunt Blanche and his two cousins, Nora and Laurie, live with his family because Blanche's husband died of cancer six years ago. Eugene's father, Jack, has worked two jobs to support everyone for three and a half years. Eugene's writing...