Neil Simon’s “Lost In Yonkers” A Great Fit For Scripps Ranch Theatre.

 

Cast of "Lost In Yonkers"

Frank Rich of The New York Times said of “Lost In Yonkers”, “The wounds run so deep that one feels (this) just may be his most honest play”. It won four Tony Awards, including best play, and the 1991 Pulitzer Prize. It opened in New York at the Richard Rodger’s Theatre on Feb. 21, 1991. It was his twenty-fourth play to reach Broadway. 

For so many years Simon’s plays, comedies and rat-tat-tat repartee were at the forefront of every local theatre’s marquee. They were his trademarks. They grew tiresome and soon disappeared but not before folks were Neil Simon-ed out. For a time, Simon even tested some of his new works at The Globe before they went on to Broadway. Now, 'Yonkers' is considered to be a ‘classic’ and a fine fit to be mounted at Scripps Ranch Theatre. 

Katee Drysdale and Jill Drexler

 I must agree, it is timeless, and while still using his formulated one liner’s and rat-tat-tat give and take, “Yonkers” is quite different from his semi -autobiographical triple “B” plays;  “Brighton Beach Memoirs”, “Biloxi Blues” and “Broadway Bound,” and /or his later plays “Rumors” and “Jake’s Women”. The latter two were mounted at The Globe in their early stages. 

Director Jacqueline Ritz, with care and attention to detail, brings to life the trials and tribulations of two young, coming of age brothers, Jay and Arthur (Arty) Kurnitz (Giovanny Diaz de Leon and JP Wishchuk just 15 1/2 and 13 ½ respectively, Brooklyn boys, who are put into a situation that will rock them out of their senses of normalcy; they will be  spending about eight or nine months living with their grandmother and aunt Bella (Katee Drysdale) who live in Yonkers just above “Kurnitz’s Kandy Store”, and family business. 

Their Dad Eddie (Kenny Bordieri) is in dire need of a cash infusion to pay off some loan sharks he was forced to borrow from because when his wife, their mother was dying of cancer he did everything possible including borrowing money, to keep her comfortable. It’s payback time now and Eddie has to come up with seven thousand dollars he doesn’t have.

JP Wishchuk, Katee Drysdale, Giovanny Diaz de Leon

The time is 1942, war time and there were wartime jobs in the south in metal scrap yards that help the war cause, but it involves being on the road for months at a time. The boys need a place to stay because Eddie gave up their apartment to save money and to travel to find work. 

When we meet up with Jay and Arty they are in the living room (Alyssa Kane) of Grandma Kurnitz’s (Jill Drexler) apartment waiting for their Dad, who is speaking with grandma in her room to give the thumbs up for them to stay with her. Every now and then he pops his head out to make sure the boys aren’t wrinkling the doilies, or ‘putting their heads on them because it gets grease on them’. “She just laundered them, he admonishes.” Arty counters back to Jay, “You mean only people who just had a shampoo can sit here?”

To say that things just aren’t right at Grandma Kurnitz’s is an understatement. You see Grandma is a woman of steel and nothing penetrates her outer armor. She grew up in Germany where Jews were the scapegoat for everything. She learned at an early age not to cry. “I was raised to be strong,” she tells them. “When they beat us with sticks, I didn’t cry”. “You don’t survive in this world without being like steel.”

Two of Grandma Kurnitz’s offspring died in childhood (she hasn’t cried since) and the four remaining are scarred, scared, repressed, lonely, eccentric, damaged and suffering from an overall lack of good old fashioned nurturing and the feeling of being loved. 

Aunt Bella, who has grown into her woman’s body in reality has a child’s mind but with all the emotions of what a woman needs; to be held and loved. Her sister Gert (Melanie Mino) has a breathing problem when she’s around her mother, brother Louie (Eddie Lebovic) is a two bit gangster who comes home to hide because he’s on the run from his enemies and Eddie their father, is labeled the weak one because he still shows emotions like crying.    

JP Wishchuk, Kenny Bordieri, Giovanni Diaz de Leon

So, is Grandma going to change her ways, take the boys in because they are her only grandchildren and are in need of a place to stay? Her first reaction is a flat out “NO!” She’s old, likes being alone, doesn’t listen to the radio after the six o’clock news, goes to sleep at nine, and neither she nor Bella has friends (She’s lived in Yonkers thirty years and has not one friend) and Yonkers is no place for them. 

But Bella, their mentally challenged aunt will hear none of it, threatening her mother that she too will leave and go to ‘the home for mentally ill if she does not let the boys stay’. Stay, they do and we have the opportunity to be witness to their coming of age in the most peculiar, often in the most -funny and unusual of circumstances given the dysfunction of the family dynamic.

Katee Drysdale is simply superb as the ‘slow sister’. We watch in amazement her arc as she sputters, jumps up and down like a child, gets mixed up, reveals her secret trips to the movies to escape while gradually finding her footing as more woman than girl/child who wants and needs what she claims every other woman needs to be held, loved touched and set free from her mother’s iron fist to be happy.  

Both Diaz de Leon and Wishchuk  are spot on excellent as Jay and Arty learning the ropes of helping out in the family store to finding ways of defending themselves against grandma’s ‘teachings’ or her verbal assaults. Both represent a new generation for the Kurnitz family, but not without their own set of scars. 

Wishchuk is funny and adorable as the younger of the two who seems less involved in the complicated ups and downs of the dysfunctional families’ goings on. He is more of a foil and comic to Diaz de Leon’s Jay is borderline boy/ man bears the brunt of his grandmother’s harshness while wanting to be respected and treated like a young man. 

Eddy Lukovic and JP Wishchuk

In the end though, it’s Bella and Grandma Kurnitz who get one more chance at redemption, but it will take work on both fronts. Watching their breakthrough is enough to break anyone’s heart. Bella begs for what she must have to survive and her mother, embarrassed and uncomfortable by being put in this position yet pooh-poohing all the while not quite absorbing the real ramifications of her daughter’s pleas, is a hold your breath moment.  

Both Drexler  and Drysdale are more than up to the task of watching each other break the cracks in the walls that separate them. And Lukovic is a wonder as the gangsta uncle who, in his own way, helps the boys to grow up a bit faster. Both Mino and Bordieri have small but significant stories to tell. They round out the rest of the talented cast, lending credibility to their imperfect family experiences and brings to the fore two more broken spirits.  They, as the other systematically damaged siblings, make this Simon work one of the ‘classics’ to be to be brought out, dusted off and told over and over again just for a reality check.

Dawn Fuller’s period costume design is spot on and Robert Mays 1940’s radio music brings back memories. 

 In case you hadn’t noticed, Anti-Semitism has reared its ugly head once again, and we cannot allow any more Kurnitz, Frank other like families be allowed to suffer as did they. 

Call me a sentimental old fool, but I was moved to laughter and tears sitting through Simon’s “Lost In Yonkers”. Bring tissues.

It will be at SRT through June 11th. 

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through June 11th

Organization: Scripps Ranch Theatre

Production Type: Comedy/Drama

Where:  Alliant International University

9783 Avenue of Nations, San Diego, CA 92131

Phone: 858) 395-0573

Ticket Prices: $42.00

Web: scrippsranchtheatre.org

Photo: Ken Jacques