The Boys Next Door is a play by Tom Griffin, first published in 1983 under a different name (and subsequently reprinted in 1988 under the present title). Griffin's play shows a series of episodes in the lives of four mentally disabled men who live together in a group home and are looked after by the put-upon social worker Jack Palmer.
The group home residents themselves vary in the form and severity of their handicaps. Arnold Wiggins has very mild cognitive deficits, but he suffers from manic depression and obsessive behavior. Barry Klemper is a young man with schizophrenia, living in a world of delusions where he is, among other things, a professional golfer. Norman Bulanski is moderately mentally handicapped but is still capable of working in a donut shop and taking basic care of himself and the house. The most severely mentally disabled resident of the home is Lucien Smith, who has (at best) the cognitive abilities of a five year old and has difficulty with basic self-care and with understanding even the simplest concepts or situations.
Meanwhile, Jack, despite his love and care for the men, is burned out by the 24x7 responsibility of looking after his charges and makes plans to find a job outside of social work. Needless to say, the men under his care, particularly the emotionally unstable Arnold, do not take his departure well.
The play is a Dramedy, many scenes focus on the slapstick, situational comedy that occurs when the group home residents try to make sense of the outside world. However, several other scenes take a more tragic turn, such as Barry's strained relationship with his abusive father, or in what may be the play's most memorable moment, a scene where Lucien steps out of character and tells the audience what he would say if he had the mental ability and eloquence necessary to fully understand and articulate his plight.
The play was especially popular with local and school theaters during the 1990s, and was adapted in 1996 as a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie directed by the prolific John Erman. Appearing in the film were Tony Goldwyn as Jack, Michael Jeter as Arnold, Nathan Lane as Norman, Robert Sean Leonard as Barry, Courtney B. Vance as Lucien, and Richard Jenkins as Barry's father.
The play has no connection to the 1985 film The Boys Next Door starring Charlie Sheen, which is about two teenagers who go on a cross-country murderous crime spree.
This play provides examples of:
- Abled in the Adaptation: In the play, Barry's father only has one arm. He has all of his limbs intact in the TV movie.
- Abusive Parents: Barry's father is ashamed of having a mentally ill son, and is both verbally and physically abusive towards Barry.
- Accidental Misnaming: Barry repeatedly calls Mr. Hedges, his skeptical golf student "Mr. Hodges" as he gives Hedges useless and nonsensical advice to improve his game.
- Adaptational Name Change: Lucien's last name is changed from Smith to Singer in the TV movie.
- Adaptational Sympathy: Downplayed in the case of Barry's father - he's just as emotionally abusive towards his son as in the play, but in the TV movie, he never hits Barry, nor does he use racial slurs towards Lucien.
- Big Eater: Norman, especially when it comes to donuts.Lucien: Norman, he be the donut man...he be fat with donuts.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Several instances, but most notably in the scene where Lucien is called before the State Senate to evaluate the need for social programs for the mentally handicapped. Lucien has absolutely no concept of what is going on and can do little more than talk about his Spiderman tie or attempt to recite the alphabet. However, during this scene he steps out of character and says what Lucien would say if only he had the intellect and eloquence to communicate his plight as a mentally handicapped man:Lucien: I stand before you a middle-aged man in an uncomfortable suit, a man whose capacity for rational thought is somewhere between a five-year-old and an oyster. [pause] I am retarded. I am damaged. I am sick inside from so many years of confusion, utter and profound confusion. I am mystified by faucets and radios and elevators and newspapers and popular songs. I cannot always remember the names of my parents. But I will not go away. And I will not wither because the cage is too small. I am here to remind the species... of... the species. I am Lucien Percival Singer. And without me, without my shattered crippled brain, you will never again be frightened by what you might have become. Or indeed, by what your future might make you.
- Character Catch Phrase:
- "I'm Lucien P. Smith and I mean business."
- "Hello, I'm Norman Bulanski, welcome to my home."
- Arnold often refers to other people's actions as "behavior patterns".
- Cloudcuckoolander: All of the group home residents have strange fixations due to their mental condition.
- Barry is a delusional schizophrenic who thinks he's a professional golfer, though he barely knows anything about golf.
- Arnold is obsessed with moving to Russia for some strange reason. In one scene, he looks at city maps in a phonebook hoping to figure out how to get to Russia.
- Norman is obsessed with wearing a large number of (useless) keys on a keychain. He bonds over this shared obsession with Sheila, the resident of another group home for the mentally handicapped.
- Lucien cannot read, but he signs out random books from the library anyway, including several year's worth of annual reports from the US Department of Agriculture.
- Delusions of Eloquence: Arnold is extremely talkative and thinks himself to be much more knowledgeable and articulate than he really is, e.g.Arnold: The [store] manager called me a fucking nut. So I called him a banana republic. Did I get even or what?!
- Evil Cripple: Barry's abusive father has only one arm.
- Gentle Giant: Lucien is described in the play as a very large, middle-aged black man. He's child-like and sweet-natured due to his mental deficits.
- Imagine Spot: Two notable ones:
- During the state senate hearing, Jack imagines what Lucien might say if he had the intellect necessary to communicate his struggles as a mentally handicapped man.
- A more lighthearted example is Jack imagining Norman and Sheila not as uncouth and bumbling during their dance, but as refined, coordinated, and elegant.
- I Reject Your Reality: One of Barry's delusions is that he's a famous professional golfer, even though he barely knows how to play and doesn't own any clubs or other golf equipment. He keeps up this belief by giving useless golf lessons at a local driving range to anyone willing to spare some change.
- Lighter and Softer: The TV adaptation makes several of the play's harsh realities less dark:
- In the play, Jack is divorced, and his vindictive ex-wife never misses an opportunity to belittle him when they do speak. In the movie, while Jack and his wife are having marital difficulties, they see a marriage counselor and seem to work out their problems to stay together.
- While Barry's father is verbally abusive towards him in the movie, he isn't physically violent.
- The film cuts out the scenes of Arnold working as a movie theater janitor, where a coworker cruelly bullies him, steals his money, and forces Arnold to shine his boots. Instead, we get a comedic sequence of Arnold trying to figure out how to return a dozen boxes of Wheaties at the supermarket.
- Malaproper: Being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All, Arnold often makes statements like this one (about a surprise party for Jack):Arnold: This is an angina party.
- Mood Whiplash: The play goes from slapstick comedy scenes (such as the boys' attempts to catch and kill the hamster they mistake for a rat) to later tragic moments showing Barry's relationship with his abusive father or Lucien's struggles to cope with the outside world.
- Motor Mouth: Arnold speaks constantly, quickly, and tends to repeat the same sentence or phrase often.
- Shout-Out: In the opening scene, the many heads of lettuce that Arnold bought cause Lucien to repeatedly bring up rabbits in their conversation, recalling another very large, mentally handicapped fictional character with a rabbit fixation.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: In the TV movie, during the comical and ridiculous scene where the four "boys" catch and kill the neighbor's hamster, thinking it's a sewer rat, and flush it down the toilet, a noble-sounding excerpt of the knight's procession from Richard Wagner's Parsifal plays.
- Terrifying Pet Store Rat: In-universe, when the neighbor's pet hamster is mistaken for a sewer rat by Arnold, Norman, Lucien, and Barry.
- Verbal Tic: Not surprising for a play about the mentally handicapped:
- "Oh boy" for Norman, preceding every other sentence.
- "Nyet" (Russian for "No") with Arnold whenever he's flustered (even though Arnold isn't Russian, and "Nyet" is the only word in the language that he knows).
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Barry's father's abusive behavior stems from his refusing to come to terms with the fact that his son is schizophrenic and can't help being what he is.
