Watching Covedale Center's production of Neil Simon's
Lost in Yonkers is both a captivating and frustrating experience. The skill and generosity of some of its performers promises much, but the show doesn't live up to that potential.
Yonkers earned Simon his first Pulitzer Prize in 1991, perhaps because it contains not only brilliant one-liners but an illustration of the tragedy of people who fail to connect in life. If the two main characters are literally abandoned, the others have almost disintegrated because of their bitterly relentless lives.
The two brothers who are "lost" in 1942 are Jay (Tommy Boeing) and Arty (Alexander McCracken). The young teenagers are forced to live with their sadistic Grandma Kurnitz (Cathy Gill) for nine months while their widowed father Eddie (Bob Brunner) travels the country to sell scrap metal.
Boeing is a marvel of wit, understanding and timing in the role of older brother. McCracken is not far behind in his boisterous performance as the younger brother, who really, really doesn't want to live with Grandma. These two actors, along with a desperate Brunner, hold up the beginning portion of the play, which is more comedic than what follows.
Grandma is the kind of woman who steals things from the premises, blames one of the kids and then punishes him for it. She will not allow anyone to cry. Gill gives the character a one-note performance that seems too firm and threatening all of the time, playing a generalized role rather than its various facets.
Aunt Bella is a fascinating role, alternating between lucidity and loony eccentricity. But K.C. Novak works too hard in the role, indicating and overdoing craziness rather than empathizing with the character's inner needs and desires. Bella's main problem, like most of the characters, is that she has a beat-up heart.
Although this production starts off with a comic bang, the actors do not maintain this level of interest when Simon's breezy writing veers in the direction of serious, heart-wrenching human problems. Lost in Yonkers is no Barefoot in the Park. Grade: C+
LOST IN YONKERS, presented by the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts, continues through Feb. 4.
