Brooklyn Boy: Just Looking For A Home

Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Winter 2005 by Motzkus, Heidi Tolles

Brooklyn Boy: Just Looking For A Home

The French philosopher Louis Althusser (1918-1990) theorized about the way in which individuals are shaped by cultural forces. He originated the notion of "hailing" to describe the way that each of us is called into our culture. Althusser used an example of a police officer calling out, "Hey, you!" to a suspicious-looking person. When that person turns around to recognize the officer, that person recognizes that he has been hailed and recognizes himself in the other's recognition of him. This person then knows how he is to respond, which in this case might be guiltily. Other examples would include the teacher who addresses a student in a manner which acknowledges that the student cannot learn, and the student answering the hail by responding as a student who cannot learn. Conversely, others may be hailed in a manner that recognizes their position of privilege and power.

The main character of Donald Margulies's new play Brooklyn Boy, which recently had its world premiere at the Tony-Award winning South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California, is just such a hailed individual. Brooklyn Boy is the story of a novelist, Eric Weiss, who also happens to be a secular Jew from Brooklyn. This novelist is finally experiencing commercial success, with his latest novel appearing on the bestseller list. With this success comes much attention to his identity as a Brooklyn Jew and many changes to his personal life.

The audience first meets this likable, but rather forlorn, character in the lobby of a Brooklyn hospital where he is visiting his father, with whom he has many unresolved issues. Eric has not been back to Brooklyn for some time, though he lives in nearby Manhattan, and it is quite evident that he no longer feels at home in Brooklyn. This is notable, given that his new novel, Brooklyn Boy, is praised for its authentic portrayal of life in a Jewish community in Brooklyn. Despite Eric's protestations to the contrary, it is clear that this is an autobiographically inspired novel.

As the audience follows Eric from scene to scene, what becomes clear is that Eric is forcefully and continually hailed, in the sense meant by Althusser, as a Jewish writer. He resists these bailings to no avail. He emphasizes that he is a writer first and foremost, with his ethnic identity being only marginally relevant. Ironically, in a hilarious and touching scene, he meets with the Hollywood producer who wants to make a film of the novel, Brooklyn Boy. This stereotypical Hollywood producer wants to take the Jewishness out of the script, and it falls upon Eric to explain why it is crucial that these characters be Jewish. Eric, in resisting the hailing of being identified as a Jewish writer and yet being a writer who mines the depths of his Jewish heritage, finds himself in the emotional state that a man without a home or a person without a country might experience. He is not quite inside and not quite outside of the cultural heritage in which he was raised.

Continuing on Eric's journey, the audience meets his soon-to-be ex-wife. There is truly love in this relationship. Sadly, it is Eric's success as a writer that has precipitated the decay of the marriage. Nina, also a writer, finds it impossible to live a life in which she is continually hailed as the famous Eric Weiss's wife. The force of this hailing is a powerful one and a constant reminder to Nina of how his success overshadows her own writing career. In the most literal sense, Eric now has no home.

Another stop on Eric's travels brings the audience to a hotel room, after Eric has done a reading from his novel. A young groupie has come back to Eric's room with clear expectations of having a romantic encounter with the famous writer. In a wonderfully written and revealing scene, we watch as Eric comes to an understanding that he also is not at home in the role of the Hollywood celebrity who exploits the tender feelings of young groupies.

After his father's death, Eric finds himself at his father's Brooklyn apartment, sorting his father's things. Ira, Eric's boyhood friend, stops by to pay his respects and is surprised to find that Eric is not sitting shiva. In another beautifully written scene, Ira hails Eric to return to his Jewish roots through the performance of a certain ritual. Ruthlessly rejecting Ira's hail, Eric is left alone and is visited in his mind by his father. After this imagined visitation is over, in grief, Eric performs the familiar ritual. Despite the intensity of Eric's previous efforts to resist the call, in this one moment he appears to he home again. This moment brings into sharp focus how powerfully cultural forces shape us all.

Donald Margulies has stated, "Some writers are very interested in being an outsider. I am not." With two Pulitzer Prizes for drama, for his plays Sight Unseen and Dinner With Friends, Margulies is clearly not an outsider. But his characters, in this play and others, do grapple with the challenges of being on the outside - of not answering the call of society in the anticipated manner. Brooklyn Boy leaves the audience with questions to consider. Is the consequence of not responding to the hailing of our culture the risk of not having a home - spiritual, emotional, or otherwise? If we do not accept the terms of our culture's hailing, do we lose our place in the order of things? Margulies looks at these questions from the perspective of those who have readily answered the call and assumed their expected place in the social order and also from the perspective of those who have resisted. Sharply, he observes the consequences of both actions.