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Watching Arizona Jewish Theatre Company’s latest production, Donald Margulies’Brooklyn Boy, I had a sense of déjà vu. The script is entertaining. It is performed well by this gifted cast. Claude File’s direction is strong. Still, I couldn’t shake it. Isn’t this the male version of the show they just mounted, The Old Man’s Friend, except with a divorce rather than a supportive spouse? Misunderstood childhood, sour father, children in the arts who are at the top of their respective specialties (Margulie’s Eric Weiss [Nicolas Glaeser] is a novelist who has just broken through, though this fact has not impressed dad). Save for the fact that one’s set in Chicago and one’s set in Brooklyn and one’s protagonist is a woman and this one’s is a man, there’s little that separates the themes of these shows. Fortunately, this iteration also has impressive performances to buoy it.

Glaeser’s Weiss is cresting on the wave of overnight success after years of struggling. To do so, he has gone semi-autobiographical, writing a novel that thinly veils his own upbringing. Eric’s life after hitting #11 on the Time list is shown as a series of episodes. His hard father Manny (Benjamin Stewart) seems to care little for this news brought to him on his deathbed. In the hospital cafeteria, Ira (Gene Ganssle), a childhood friend, see himself as one of the characters in the book and wants recognition of this. Later, his estranged wife (Cathy Dresbach) takes it as further reminder of her own failures at being published. In Los Angeles, Alison (Jamie Greenberg), is a college student who seems more impressed with the moniker of best-selling author than the man himself. Dresbach returns in different garb to play a high-powered Jewish Paramount producer who pushes on him narcissistic teen actor Tyler (Kyle Sorrell) to portray the role based on him in his movie. But no matter how much people misunderstand or misrepresent his work, Eric finds himself once more in his father’s apartment for a ghostly monologue.

Being episodic, File has asked Thom Gilseth to create a stage that can become many places, and the result is a three-panel unit set similar to his last, though with a nifty revolve to change the center platform. It is in these spaces that Glaeser shows a quiet resolve and subdued haunting that he’s not often asked to play. Glaeser proves his depth in a role that File ensures avoids Glaeser’s trademark larger-than-life ways. The scene between him and Dresbach as a husband and wife unsure of their finality is heartbreaking because both actors are immediately sympathetic and identifiable. The scenes Glaeser plays with his father are a lot about listening, and while Stewart is his usual grand self and loveable for his rigidness, Glaeser remains intent, even as the pressure rises. It’s nice to remember that Glaeser is just as good at the subtle and subdued as he is with the wild and outrageous.

Dresbach’s dual characters are radically different, and while her producer strays into caricature, she aces the regret-filled wife Nina. Ganssle can play funny, but he’s also a go-to guy for the endearing nebbish-next-door. His Ira runs from joshing to jousting, and still remains good-nik. Sorrell falls into the trap that File has set for the Hollywood scene, but you can’t help but laugh at his vainglorious Tyler, a compendium of our secret prejudices of young stars in Tinseltown. The only slight letdown of the evening is the performance of Greenberg, who seems to breeze through a major moment in Eric’s life during the rather uncomfortable hotel room scene. There’s a little too much façade chosen here.

Erik K. Reid’s lighting, as well as the facings on the set, take a cue from the setting of the Mondrian Hotel in the second act. The geometric shapes and primary colors create a nice atmosphere in which Eric unravels. Lois K. Myers’ costumes do a nice job of showing the East Coast/West Coast separations of the two acts.