hris Rock gave it a shout-out at the Academy Awards ceremony. Posh Spice and David Beckham named their child after it. There's even a Broadway musical bearing its name. The borough of Brooklyn, which sometimes seems more like a creation of the media than a place where people actually live, has become so chic that it has even inspired a backlash; New York magazine published a screed this month called "I Hate Brooklyn."

If you want to know how and why this happened, go see "There Goes the Neighborhood," the engaging and smart solo play written by Mari Brown and performed by Deanna Pacelli. The docudrama, made up of brief quotations drawn from interviews with people from Cobble Hill, will remind audiences of the days before 718 sweatshirts and the $20 million Brooklyn Heights town house.

Working off a template popularized by Anna Deavere Smith, it's an entertaining oral history of gentrification that, as one character nicely puts it, moves from "crack to baguettes."

Before it turned into restaurant row in the 1990's, Smith Street was once an ethnic neighborhood full of Italian, Puerto Rican and African-American families. You needed to be careful walking to the F train, and the streets were filled with more mobsters than yuppies. Using only a few props, Ms. Pacelli impersonates a variety of types - a Puerto Rican girl, an Asian shop owner, a Caucasian architect - who hold forth on their changing neighborhood.

Ms. Pacelli gives each person a few signature gestures; the Italian pork-shop owner sticks his thumbs in his armpits, for instance. But unlike many solo-show chameleons, this lithe actress with bulging eyes is as meticulous in creating subtext as in her physical impersonations.

Ms. Brown's script approaches the thorny and complicated issue of gentrification with a scrupulous balance, presenting as many views on the subject as can fit into an hourlong play. On the con side, we hear that it breaks down connections between neighbors, pushes out homegrown business and evicts little old ladies; on the pro, that the area is safer and full of restaurants, and that by selling their homes, those little old ladies can retire in style.

It's unlikely that the show will change your mind about gentrification, but it should make you think more deeply about the subject and also provide a nice addition to the already considerable collection of nostalgic art (Spike Lee's "Crooklyn," Jonathan Lethem's novels) about old Brooklyn. Neighborhoods come and go, but some are remembered more than others.

"There Goes the Neighborhood" continues through May 29 at P.S. 122, 150 First Avenue, at Ninth Street, East Village, (212) 477-5288.