Anne Marie Welsh of The San Diego Union-Tribune: "Margulies' beneficent new Brooklyn Boy has mainstream hit written all over it, yet it in no way panders--an important distinction for a playwright whose theme has often been the temptation to artists of selling out. To my mind the funniest and certainly one of his most moving plays, Brooklyn Boy had its world premiere over the weekend at South Coast Repertory. The Broadway-bound production is meticulously directed by Daniel Sullivan, fluently designed by Ralph Funicello, and stars the dolefully delightful Adam Arkin as a gifted, if lovably hapless, novelist and mensch, Eric Weiss. For those unfamiliar with Margulies' work, this comedy delivers the kind of humane pleasures that brought audiences from all over New York City to Broadway during the post-World War II era. For those who have watched Margulies develop over the last 15 years or so, very often with the support of South Coast Rep, Brooklyn Boy offers the subtler pleasure of watching a master deftly weave so many lifelong themes into this comedy-drama's colorful fabric."
Paul Hodgins of The Orange County Register: "Director Daniel Sullivan, a longtime Margulies collaborator, capitalizes on one of the playwright's greatest strengths: his ability to subsume his voice to his characters'. Each relationship plays out naturally; there's no sense of directorial imperatives pushing scenes' emotional arrows this way or that for heightened effect… Those who know Margulies' plays will find his familiar themes here: the inevitable transformations wrought by aging, the complex bonds linking parents and children, the uneasy dance between commercial and artistic success. But like his creation, Eric Weiss, Margulies seems to be placing them in a more elemental context than his earlier work did--the place where both the playwright and the play's main character grew up. How tightly are art and reality intertwined in Brooklyn Boy? I don't know, and it doesn't matter. The story unfolds with an uncanny resonance that distinguishes all great theater, reminding us that nobody's journey through life can be made without some bad decisions, wrong directions or regrets."