What is the central idea of this excerpt?

First sentence in the given passage is declarative sentence.

If one would combine first and second sentence, it would become compund sentence.

Explanation:

Brighton Beach Memoirs is a play written by Neil Simon. It is considered for some parts a semi-autobiography of the author.

The given passage talks about this play.

The first sentence of the passage is declarative sentence. A declarative sentence or assertive sentences are those statements that tend to give information or inform the audience about something. For instance, Mary loves reading books. This statement is declarative as it is giving information about Mary's likes.

In the same manner, the first statement of the passage is declarative as it is giving infomration about thoughts of some people about Eugene, the protagonist of the play.

If one would combine first and second sentence, it would become a compound sentence. A compound statement is a sentence that consists of two independent statement combined by a coordinating conjunction.

The first and second statement of the passage are two independent statements that can be combined using a coordinating conjuction.