Am I getting too old to be constantly luxuriating in the nostalgia of the "old neighborhood?" The answer is a resounding "Yes!" But when the magnets of my Bronx childhood draw me back, I become hopelessly involved.

I read the reviews of the Broadway play Brooklyn Boy in Newsday and The New York Times and I decided to see it. I knew that the author, Donald Margulies, was an outstanding playwright. I enjoyed his Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Dinner With Friends about two young couples and their problems. An added bonus was that Adam Arkin was the eponymous lead. His slow, lisping delivery of his lines was so authentic that I actually felt he was an old friend of mine.

The Wednesday matinee was well-attended as I settled into my seat in the fifth row center. I called for my ticket that very morning.

The opening set was the front of an apartment house that could have been from the Brooklyn and Bronx of yore. The front door of the house opened and a hospital bed slid through it and turned into a fully equipped hospital room. Adam Arkin, a novelist, was at his dying father's bedside. He, at the age of 40, had published a best-selling novel. He hands his father (Alan Miller) the book and the repartee between the father and son is outstanding. It is "every man" talking to "every father." Only a truly gifted writer, such as Mr. Margulies, could capture every nuance and gesture of this delicate situation.

Eric Weiss (Arkin) has written of the "old neighborhood."

The moment of his greatest triumph, his bestseller, is also the time of his father's dying and his divorce from a wife he loves dearly. In the hospital cafeteria he meets his childhood friend (Arye Gross) and through their reminiscing much is revealed about each of them.

The written dialogue was wonderful. So authentic, so touching, so "on the mark," that I was dazzled. Act II is hilarious as Eric tries to recite the screenplay of his novel for Hollywood. The banality of the movie-makers is portrayed in a sardonic manner and lines are side-splitting.

I will not reveal the ending, but it reminded me of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and his children.

Enough said - See the show - Tell me you loved it - Tell me you hated it. Brooklyn (Bronx) Boy is a provoker.