Read the excerpt from Brighton Beach Memoirs In this excerpt, Neil Simon helps the audience best
understand Eugene's
EUGENE They're clean. I'm wearing a glove. (He throws
the ball into his glove again...
then he looks out front and
addresses the audience) I hate my name! Eugene Morris

Jerome. It is the second worst name ever given to a
male child. The first worst is Haskell Fleischmann How
am I ever going to play for the Yankees with a name like
Eugene Morris Jerome? You have to be a Joe. or a
Tony...or Frankie. If only I was born Italian... All the best
Yankees are Italian... My mother makes spaghetti with
ketchup what chance do I have?
Ha slams the hall into his love again)
O irritation he feels toward his mother for cooking
spaghetti
O desire to be like his idols, the Yankees baseball
players
O annoyance at being asked to clean his hands.
O frustration he feels because his middle name is
Morris who ever gets this right gets