By Cynthia Citron

In this life, everybody has his cross to bear.  Even if he's Jewish.

In Marley Sims and Elliot Shoenman's new play, Sunset Park, Roger (a brittle Jim Ortlieb) has to deal with the fact that the money that supports his lavish lifestyle is his wife's and that the power and control resides with his father-in-law, for whom he works.  His older sister Carol (a strident and volatile Melanie Chartoff) is an abandoned wife and single mother who, at 50, has filled her emptiness with unfocused rage.  Their mother Evelyn (a saucy Sheila Oaks), meanwhile, still vigorous and independent at 75, faces the bittersweet epiphanies of advancing age.

It is a trite truism that inside every older woman resides a young girl who wonders who that old woman in the mirror is.  Oaks manages to convey that cliché without evoking either pity or derision.  She is a woman of the old school who believes that you take whatever life dishes out and you make a nourishing kugel out of it.  She is feisty, funny, and cheerful and filled with a bedrock dignity.

Her children, on the other hand, regress to dysfunctional six-year-olds in her presence, lashing out at each other  in unresolved sibling rivalry.  Chartoff and Ortlieb make you feel their disappointment and distress without making you dislike them.  They are credible children of their generation, recognizable in any ethnicity.

Their common concern is Evelyn and the inevitable constriction of her world as friends die off or move from Brooklyn to the homes of their adult children.  The apartment Evelyn lives in is going co-op.  Should they help her buy it or plan ahead for her future in a nursing home?

As Evelyn reminisces about the past, the lights dim and Sally Saffioti and Aaron Jettleson, playing Evelyn as a bride with her much-loved husband Benny, discuss the problems of an earlier time. Many of which concern his irascible father (played with an irritating pessimism by Murray Rubin) who comes to live with them after his wife dies.  He is the father-in-law from Hell, and his irrational dislike of and contempt for Evelyn is never really explained.  It may be nothing more than that she has become the butt for his own unhappiness.  At any rate, the flashbacks reveal nothing terribly unusual or unfamiliar in the family dynamics, but they provide a pleasant device to keep the action flowing and the conversation alive.

The very best scenes in this absorbing play, however, come from the interaction between Evelyn and her best friend, Rose, who has lived across the hall for 50 years.  Jennie Ventriss brings a warm and loving presence to Evelyn's kitchen and the intimacy that comes from having been brides and widows together.  And having become mothers who revolve outside the orbits of their children's lives.

Mark L. Taylor has directed this fine cast with a deft touch.  They are consistent, varied, and engaging, mostly because they are working with an intelligent, well-rounded script.  And because they are partnered with a set that is so vivid as to constitute another whole character all by itself. You have to wonder where set designer Nathan Matheny found these wonderful vintage furnishings.  When was the last time you saw a yellow  Philco refrigerator?  Or one of those rickety end tables whose bottom shelf is a V that holds magazines?  This apartment has obviously been lived in, and loved, for half a century.

Sunset Park is not a terribly profound play, but it does open the door to some deep considerations.  It is well worth a trip to the Zephyr Theatre, at 7456 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood to see this promising world premiere that runs Thursday through Sunday, June 5..