Give this show a medal

Anyone who enjoyed Neil Simon’s klutzy character Eugene Morris Jerome in Brighton Beach Memoirs can see the sequel to that funny and sensitive autobiographical sketch at the Walnut Street Theatre.

Biloxi Blues sends Eugene to Mississippi for basic training for the Army in 1943. He faces authority and danger, anti-Semitism and assimilation. He methodically loses his virginity with a prostitute, less for pleasure than as a rite of passage, then rediscovers his innocence in the chaste embrace of a Catholic schoolgirl. He confronts the chasm between his diary jottings and literature. In perhaps Eugene’s least anticipated experience, he meets a peer smarter than he is, not only in book smarts but in his grasp of human nature.

In rapid-fire one-liners, Biloxi Blues harmonizes comic and serious themes conveyed through the eyewitness account of Eugene, who occasionally steps out of the frame to reminisce and comment to the audience.

The play begins as Eugene and four fellow recruits head south to camp, and ends as they head north again. But the action doesn’t wander all over the map; it centers on Eugene and his buddies. One of the mainstays of comedy is to place characters with a certain bias into an alien environment, and this is certainly the case with these recruits in a Southern Army camp.

When the men arrive at camp, they are greeted by the typical tough-guy sergeant (Josh Clark). He calls them to attention and lets it be known that when asked a question, they should answer with a firm "ho" and nothing else. Mr. Simon gets a good five minutes out of the "ho" sequence. When first addressed by the sergeant, Arnold Epstein (Steven Klein) cannot resist saying "ho, ho." Eugene replies, "Yes, ho," and when the sergeant barks out "What?" Eugene comes back with "ho, nothing."

The cast is the predictable ethnic mix with Wykowski (T.J. Sokso), a macho Polish brute with an overactive libido; Selridge (Matt Pfeiffer), an Anglo-Saxon; and two Irishmen, Carney (Aaron Cromie) and Hennesey (Jeffrey Coon). Finally, there is Arnold, the brainy Jew whom the prejudiced Wykowski is forever accusing of being a homosexual or a thief. For his part, Arnold absolutely refuses to compromise with the Army in any way, whether it is eating chow or submitting to the Army’s insane logic. So, he spends most of his time in basic training scrubbing latrines.

Eugene, meanwhile, is beginning to discover the price that one pays for being a writer. When Arnold stingingly accuses Eugene of being a "witness," devoid of passion and commitment, the insight might make an audience reconsider its feelings about the title character and also its author, who appears to be musing self-critically about his early years of often-bland ingratiation in Hollywood and on TV.

Listening to the lines in Act I of Biloxi Blues is like watching a graceful basketball player sink one shot after another. The Walnut’s work is crisp, natural and neat. Every joke hits its exact mark, none are wasted. As befits the setting, many of the gags are of the locker-room and latrine variety.

Director Frank Ferrante keeps the pacing tight and even. The cast is headed by Jesse Bernstein, who meets the play’s demands with a wonderful expressive vitality. He gives us a marvelous comic performance, never letting the one-liners or the physical turns seem like "shtick," always convincing us of his character’s genuine wonder at the world around him.

Clark’s work as the terrifying sergeant is superb with the perfect measure of exterior grit and interior human frailty. As the obnoxious Arnold, Klein is quite convincing — projecting suitable reserves of hostility and pain through a subdued, almost Gandhi-like exterior. Coon, the Walnut’s leading man in musicals, is noticeably miscast in this play.

The women in this production come into their own. Madi Distefano has a cutting-edge performance as the married prostitute who doesn’t work weekends and Elizabeth Webster is fetching as the pristine Catholic college girl.

Aside from its comic finesse, the strength of the performances lies in the fact that the spectator comes to care about these very reluctant heroes.

David Gordon’s economical set design — mostly projections — is neat but not especially evocative.

Biloxi Blues is an engrossing play, whether it is taken as a walk through memories or a journey to history, and this Walnut Theatre production pulsates with energy and humor.

Biloxi Blues
Walnut Street Theatre
825 Walnut St.
Through Feb. 29
Tickets: $10-$50
215-574-3550
www.wstonline.org