Marcxh 2010
An emergency project that's come up has me cutting a few review
corners, this edition, and this review is getting the shortest shrift,
because there's not that much to say, and most of it's positive.
Lost in Yonkers is
Neil Simon's 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy drama, and the current engagement at the
Paper Mill Playhouse is
the last stop of a regional trifecta (it has been co-produced and
alreadsy been featured at two other regional theaters,. the Maitz
Jupiter in Florida, and the Cleveland Playhouse,). Under the direction
of
Michael Bloom, it features a largely fine cast in a perfectly able staging (director
Michael Bloom).
If I have any caveats, they are that I think the acting (and direction)
of the two young brothers is a bit broad and "kid-actorish"
(surelywe're all capable of more nuanced approaches these days), and
that the running gag of Gert, the sister's respiratory problem is
likewise handled too broadly, and violates verisimilitude, which can be
fragile in a Neil Simon play if the balance isn't just so. Happily, as
I've indicated, these are but sidebar distractions, and for the most
part things are handled quite well. With the most prominent and
emotionally weighted roles, those of Bella and Grandma Kurnitz in the
expert hands of
Sara Surrey and daytime soap mainstay
Rosemary Prinz respectively. The production should be especially enjoyable and worthwhile to anyone who has never seen the play before.
For those unfamiliar, who want to know a bit more about the play, a
borrowed (and slightly modified) Wikipedia thumbnail appears below,
with the Paper Mill cast names interpolated.
*******
Lost in Yonkers is a coming of age tale that focuses on brothers Arty (Maxwell Beer) and Jay (Alex Wyse), left in the care
of their Grandma Kurnitz (Rosemary Prinz) and Aunt Bella (Sara Surrey) in Yonkers, New York. Their desperate father, Eddie (John Plumpis), works as
a traveling salesman to pay off debts incurred following the death of
his wife. Grandma is a severe, frightfully intimidating immigrant who terrified her children as they
were growing up, damaging each of them to varying degrees. Bella is a
sweet but mentally slow and highly excitable woman who longs to marry an
usher at the local movie house so she can escape the oppressive
household and create a life and family of her own. Her brother Louie (J. Anthony Crane) is a
small-time, tough-talking hoodlum who is on the run, while her sister
Gert (Patricia Buckley) suffers from a breathing problem with causes more psychological
than physical problems. Missing much of the sentimentality of the plays
comprising Simon's earlier Eugene trilogy, Lost in Yonkers climaxes with a
dramatic confrontation between embittered mother and lonely daughter
that permanenly and surprisingly alters the dynamic of this highly dysfunctional family.
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