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Jonathan Silverman, who has spent the last few years of his life playing the alter ego of Neil Simon on Broadway and now, in the film version of "Brighton Beach Memoirs," on the screen, is the kind of young man every mother wishes her daughter would marry -- bright, polite, clean-cut, charming, modest. And he seems to have his share of interested young women -- many of whom he meets when they come backstage at the Broadhurst Theater, where he is starring In "Broadway Bound" -- to tell him how good he Is. He is playing Eugene Morris Jerome at the age of 23, as the Simon character begins his writing career. "lt's great for my social life," Mr. Silverman said with an unabashed grin. "I sometimes do ask some of those girls to go out with me. I may be taking a kind of advantage of my position, but heck, I'm 20 years old."
In the past three years, Mr. Silverman has worked practically nonstop. He began his career at 17, as a high school senior, when, believe it or not, an agent actually spotted him in a school production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." This was, after all, Beverly Hills High School, but the sudden discovery was still unusual, especially for a student playing his very first speaking part -- Puck. "I thought I would go to business school," he said. "I had taken drama as an elective just for fun. I heard it was an easy A. I auditioned for all the plays, but I always got cast in the crowd scenes -- I was the guy over there, on the left."
A week later, he was sent to audition for the part of Eugene as a replacement for Matthew Broderick in the Broadway production of "Brighton Beach Memoirs." "I was very nervous, of course." Mr. Silverman said. "But I was also really excited. I mean Neil Simon was here. He was a household word. He was very nice. Now he tells me he knew 10 minutes into the reading that I had the part. I wish he'd told me."
The play launched Mr. Silverman into an acting career that continues to grow, as both the actor and his character age. He went on to replace Mr. Broderick again In "Biloxi Blues," played Eugene in the movie of "Brighton Beach Memoirs," which opened Thursday, and is now playing him as a young man beginning his professional life. Mr. Silverman, who was 5 feet 4 inches tall three years ago, when he first played Eugene, now measures 6 feet. In addition to playing Eugene Morris Jerome, he managed to enroll part time in college amassing credits toward a degree in English literature, and to star in the weekly television series "Gimme a Break" and his first feature film, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."
Mr. Silverman's resemblance to Mr. Simon is not confined to role playing. From their early ambitions to their family histories, there are striking parallels between the two men. The playwright and the actor have become close, and Mr. Silverman draws on these similarities in his portrayal.
"lt's kind of scary," Mr. Silverman said. "l'm really his alter ego. Whenever he comes to the theater, he comes to my dressing room. We are very close. You know, this is probably his finest play, but he can't bear to watch it. It's too close, too personal. It hurts too much. After we opened in Washington, at the party, he was clutching The Washington Post review, which said that he could now be considered one of the great serious dramatic playwrights, and he looked very happy. A few hours later he got taken to the hospital with chest pains. Fortunately It didn't turn out to be his heart. Part of it was nerves.
"I came down with the flu two days later -- maybe partly because he got sick. Now every time I see him, I ask him how he feels. If he thinks he's getting a cold, I think I should start taking some vitamin C."
The actor is joking, but there is a kind of seriousness behind his words that reflects the respectful, fillial, almost idolatrous regard he has for the playwright. Both grew up infatuated with baseball and both dreamed of becoming professional baseball players. Both came from families that seemed tightly knit and loving and eventually broke apart painfully when the father left. Both were raised in religious Jewish households. Mr. Silverman comes from several generations of rabbis on both sides of his family. His mother, a sabra whose family hes been in Palestine and Israel for seven generations, is the granddaughter of a rabbi. Members of her family were among the early pioneers In Palestine and helped to found a section in the Old City of Jerusalem where one street still bears their name -- Halaban -- Mr. Silverman's mother's maiden name. His father, Rabbi Hillel Silverman of Temple Sholom in Greenwich, Conn., is a widely respected Conservative rabbi, whose father and grandfather were also rabbis. But Jonathan Silverman's story is not that of "The Jazz Singer," whose Orthodox father thought that his son's choice of show business as a profession was a rejection of his heritage. "My parents were both very supportive of whatever I wanted to do," Mr. Silverman said.
In "Brighton Beach Memoirs," the Jerome family is shown as very close, with a loving and tender relationship between the parents. In "Broadway Bound," the parents separate when the husband walks out. "I think 'Brighton Beach Memoirs' is really Neil's fantasy family," Mr. Silverman said. "It's what he wished it was. It was really all reversed. It wasn't his aunt and cousin who came to live in his house. It was really Neil and his brother Danny and their mother who went to live with his aunt when his father left them. Now both his parents are dead. He never really had a chance to work out his feelings about his father or his hurt or anger." Mr. Silverman said that his own family broke up after his parents had been married for 30 years, when his father left home two months before the actor's bar mitzvah, at 13 -- the traditional time when a Jewish boy comes of age. "It was devastating" he said. "I never thought that I would be able to use that pain in my future life. But in this play, of course, I need to use it. I was concerned about what my parents' reaction would be. It's so striking how similar the Jerome family and the Silverman family are. When I just read the script, I couldn't stop crying because of the similarities. Not only can Neil peg his own family down, but he pegs everyone's family down."
Mr. Silverman said that he thought that it is because Mr. Simon never resolved his feelings about his parents' divorce that the dramatist finds the play he wrote so hard to watch. "I would hope I will one day work out my feelings," Mr. Silverman said. "My dad hides his emotions. He came backstage after the opening of the show. He is usually so talkative, but he could hardly speak, and that was scary. Just that might have helped me to resolve it a little. The play is therapy for me, just as it is for Neil. I haven't felt the chest pains yet, but it's the most draining thing I've ever done."
Mr. Silverman says he feels very close to Mr. Simon. "He says that he has two daughters, but that if he had ever had a son, he would have wanted him to be like me," Mr. Silverman said proudly. "You know, I didn't think I looked anything like him, but his daughter told me that I look a lot like him when he was younger. On opening night, his brother Danny gave me a present. It was an old photograph of Neil and Danny and Phil Silvers when they were doing the Phil Silvers show. Neil was about 20, I guess. And he really looked just like me."
In "Brighton Beach Memoirs," Eugene's character is 15 years old. The film was shot last year, when Mr. Silverman was 19, and he says he was growing so fast that it was probably the last possible moment when he could have played the role and still be accepted as a 15-year-old. "You know," he said, "I thought it would be easier for me because I had played that character on stage for so long, I really knew him so well. And in some ways I guess it was. I had done all the homework -- but it was more difficult than I realized it would be making that transition to the screen.
"I had to sort of start from scratch. I had to tone the whole person down for a camera that was a few inches from my face instead of an audience that was sitting up to the last row in the balcony. It was very awkward at first -- minimizing everything like that."
Mr. Silverman said that playing Eugene in "Broadway Bound" was particularly exciting because he created the role from scratch. "On the other projects, when I entered they already knew what they wanted," he said. "This time they didn't. Neil offered me the role before he even wrote the play. There was the process of experimenting and learning and falling on my face, and it was ultimately the most rewarding. Also, since this was much closer to Neil, I felt a greater responsibility. I built my character more on Neil than in the previous one. I borrowed some of his characteristics. I don't even think he knows it. It could be something as simple as the way I scratch my nose as Eugene, but it's there to help me develop the character."
Is he worried that he may be type-cast playing different versions of Neil Simon? "A lot of people ask me that," Mr. Silverman said. "Believe me, that is the least of my problems. There are a lot of worse things that can happen to me than kicking off a career with Neil Simon."
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