Family affairs provide a never-ending source of comedic material for Eugene, the young writer who serves as the autobiographical narrator of Neil Simon's Broadway Bound. Even as his parents' marriage dissolves and his grandfather loses touch with reality, Eugene continues to provide the audience with wry commentary, viewing his family difficulties as pure theater. "If I could just get enough people to pay admission to sit in our living room," Eugene fantasizes, as he lounges in his bedroom and contemplates his relatives' behavior.

Broadway Bound

At Mather House TV Room

February 17 and 18

But under the direction of Lisi Fishman, the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel Dramatic Society's production of Broadway Bound emphasizes the dramatic, rather than the comic, aspects of Simon's play. The performances of Jodi Kanter, Jeff Golden and Jeremy Blumenthal as Eugene's parents and brother are riveting.

And if Scott Ettinger's portrayal of Eugene sometimes seems less so, it is because his character remains distant from the tensions that the other family members cannot escape. Even though Ettinger provides commentary on the action he never quite becomes part of it. While he is funny and believable, his serious musings on marriage and intimacy never have the poignancy they should have.

Nonetheless, the high quality of the acting makes this production worth watching. While Simon's one-liners are funny, it is the silences of Kanter as Kate, Eugene's mother, and Blumenthal as Jack, his father, that represent the play's best moments. Their interaction with one another and with the play's other actors is first-rate. Even the four Mather residents who walked through the back of the set during a climactic scene between the two parents did not manage to spoil the tension.

Kanter deserves particular praise. She remains tightly controlled throughout the play, showing Kate's strain but never overdoing it. As she describes the scenes of her youth to Stanley and Eugene, she reveals a side of her personality which seems incongruous to them but entirely believable to the audience. And when she realizes that Jack has left her, Kanter says nothing but still manages to dominate the stage. Her face says it all.

Sadly, however, the production's cosmetic failings distract one's attention for much of the first act. The two story set in the Mather House TV room is impressive, but much more reminiscent of a college dormitory than a postwar Brooklyn home. Which is fine, because Blumenthal's Jack, who claims to be 55 years old, doesn't look a day over 25. He fits right in.

And although all the characters are from Brighton Beach, you wouldn't know it by listening to them. One of the actors affects an thick accent of the sort usually reserved for Jewish jokes, while another has no accent at all.

These occasional distractions tend to make the early stages of Broadway Bound slow going. But as the play gets under way, the quality of the performances eclipses such minor technical problems, and it becomes difficult to avoid immersing oneself in the drama of the Brooklyn family's troubles.