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On the surface, Donald Margulies's new play, "Brooklyn Boy" (at the Biltmore, under the direction of Daniel Sullivan), is a rueful account of what passes on these shores for literary success; beneath that familiar terrain, however, it is an attempt to map a much murkier emotional landscape: the jealousy that such success inevitably inspires. This being a Broadway show, Margulies's portrait of envy's spoiling rage is served up with large dollops of humor and a pinch of reparation--Envy Lite. Nonetheless, his inquiry is not without fascination.
Here, Eric (Adam Arkin), a young literary lion--the eponymous Brooklyn boy of his best-seller's title--detours from his book tour to visit his dying father, Manny (the baleful Allan Miller), in the cancer ward of a Brooklyn hospital. Arriving with a copy of his new novel in hand, he proudly turns to the dedication page, which reads, "For my mother and my father." "Don't we get our names?" his father responds. "Couldn't you say 'For Phyllis and Manny Weiss?' . . . It would've given your mother, may she rest in peace, such nakhess to see her name in print. When do people like us ever get to do that? Huh? When we die." Manny, who has spent his working life in Brooklyn selling Buster Brown shoes, isn't big on reading; he is, however, big on belittling. "I tried reading those other books of yours. Those first two," he says. " 'The Something-Something' and the other one, 'The . . .'?" His son reminds him that the novel was called "The Aerie" and that the word means a bird's nest. "Then why couldn't you call it 'The Bird's Nest'?" Manny says. "Something people could pronounce. No wonder nobody bought it; they didn't know how to ask for it." Eric's life is just beginning; his father's is ending. Manny's fury at this takes the shape of a constant drizzle of abuse. Eric's book has reached No. 11 on the Times best-seller list. "You mean there is an eleven? I thought it only went to ten," Manny says. He is a psychological terrorist, transmitting his own sense of impotence to others. In this sad, well-managed scene, Manny tramples all over his son's sense of accomplishment....