Getting "Lost in Yonkers" Again
Lost in Yonkers
The Broadway Blog
Tom Mizer
March 26 2012
You can't choose your family.
The old cliche rang insistently through my mind as I watched Lost in Yonkers, Neil Simon's Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy/drama currently receiving its first New York City revival courtesy of The Actors Company Theatre. (Read the lovely New York Times review.) The story of two teenage boys left to live with their tyrannical Grandmother Kurnitz and mentally challenged Aunt Bella after their mother's death, the play is often sited as comic master Simon’s deepest work-with its atypical dramatic climax and its parade of siblings emotionally and physically damaged by the sins of their parents.
Though it does get plenty of laughs (many thanks to stage newcomer Russell Posner as the youngest boy Arty), this intimate production directed admirably by Jenn Thompson focuses on the real pain that underlies the play. This more dramatic approach (down to an almost Arthur Miller-esque unfinished set with brooding cloudscape) highlights that the script is indeed worthy of serious consideration-it is tightly, almost unbearably, wound in its theme of familial scars-and it makes the climatic turns feel well prepared for and emotionally cathartic. However, there are times that the focus on subtlety leaves the unmistakeable Simonized set-ups and punchlines uncomfortably incomplete, ghost jokes lingering in the air. The play's heart shines through, though, in an inspired performance byFinnerty Steves as Aunt Bella, beautifully walking a very delicate line between the truth and comedy in Bella's confusion. She fills then breaks our hearts.
If I sound particularly engaged (code for "running on and on") about this play, it's because the Kurnitz's are family to me. Right out of college, I was hired to understudy the role of Jay (the 15 year old brother) for two weeks in Yonkers' Chicago Premiere production at the Royal George Theatre (directed by Michael Leavitt) while the regularly understudy was on vacation. I would barely learn the script, get a rehearsal or two with the stage manager and get my first professional "acting" check without ever performing the role. Unbeknownst to me (and the rest of the cast), the actor playing Jay-who like me was almost a decade older than the character-decided I should get to go on after all my work. Such a thoughtful gesture...if he had warned any of us! He played sick and I got the call a few hours before the show. Somewhere between flop sweat and catatonic, I rushed to the theater to appear on my first professional stage-in a smash hit that had been running for a year already.
I was quickly introduced to the cast, pinned into costumes and thrust out onto stage with only the most tenuous grasp on this large role. Ten minutes into the play, the always-divine Paula Scrofano made her entrance as Bella, took one look at this stranger sitting on the couch beside her and lost her mind-a deep, engulfing blank glazing over her eyes. I barely knew my lines; I certainly didn't know hers. Seeking help, I turned to the other actor on the couch, an actual 13 year old playing Arty. He smiled at me like a golden retriever pup. I was on my own. Somehow, I bobbed and weaved around the script, improvising a grab bag of awkward questions and random lines I pulled from my head like it was a bingo drum with dialogue on the balls. By the good grace of Dionysus, we made it through and by the time I finally got off-stage at intermission, I had the intense will to survive of a scarred vet heading into one more battle.
The war was not over. Jay has a big, cathartic monologue in the second act that I'd actually worked on and I was looking forward to getting to do some Schmacting. Uncle Louie fed me my cue and I took a deep, preparatory breath. Creak. A door opened on stage behind me when a door shouldn't have been opening. I did a long, slow Bea Arthur take to look behind me. Two pages early for her entrance, the fearsome Chicago legend Marji Bank, as the Grandmother, was in the doorway looking at me like I was in the wrong place. I was forced to skip to my exit line and marched off.
After the show, Paula apologized to me profusely. Marji, in her curmudgeonly awesomeness, merely said, "It’s a boring monologue anyway." The generous and wise stage manager Fred Klaisner took me aside, hugged me and said, "Kid, if you can survive that, you can handle anything."
In the end, I thought I wouldn’t be able to be with my family but, unexpectedly, I was. It was just a different family than I'd expected.