“Lost in Yonkers”
Where: Theater J, Jewish Community Center, 1529 16 St. NW
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Saturday; 3 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; Tuesday performances at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 10, 17, 24; Matinees: noon Oct. 28 and Nov. 4 and 2 p.m. Nov. 27; no evening performance Oct. 28 or Nov. 26; through Nov. 29
Info: $30-$55 (discounts available); 800-494-8497; theaterj.org
Neil Simon is an undisputed master of comedy, but in some of his plays there are such poignant emotional elements — when Simon writes of nostalgia for the past or the importance of family, for instance — that his funny lines and comic scenarios seem to be mere byproducts in the work of a first-rate, serious dramatist.
“Lost in Yonkers,” currently at Theater J, is one of those plays. Set in 1942, loss and poverty have already described the future for two brothers: 15-year-old Jay (Kyle Schliefer) and 13-year-old Arty (Max Talisman) have lost their mother to cancer. Their father, Eddie (Kevin Bergen), is broke and determined to go on the road selling scrap metal, so he leaves the boys with their dictatorial, icy Grandma Kurnitz (Tana Hicken).
The situation means the boys will also live with their aunt, Bella (the brilliant Holly Twyford), a sweet woman who is mentally slightly slow and who takes care of Grandma. Add to the mix a slick, gun-toting, mob-connected uncle, Louie (Marcus Kyd), and another aunt, Gert (Lise Bruneau), who hyperventilates when around her demanding mother, and you have Simon’s definition of the ultimate disconnected, confining family.
Yet this is a comedy, after all, so Simon allows his characters to break free from that confinement, find themselves and become connected. Schliefer and Talisman are particularly winning as the brothers who view lessons of loss, survival and loyalty with irony and humor.
Confrontations abound throughout “Lost in Yonkers,” but Bella’s final resistance to Grandma Kurnitz is the most powerful. Bella’s revelation that all she ever wanted from her mother was love might sound cliched: given Twyford’s superb acting, it is absolutely credible and absolutely heartbreaking.
Director Jerry Whiddon has created an effective ensemble, which portrays Simon’s seven isolated individuals slowly growing into a union, each character — even Grandma — ultimately helping another. Daniel Conway’s meticulously designed brown/gold/amber set, full of dusky photographs and pristine antimacassars, locates the play in a tidy, stifling place where existence itself has begun to atrophy, until Arty and Eddie burst in, breathing life and vigor into it.
