Several years ago the Maltz Theatre presented the first of his “Eugene Trilogy” his most autobiographical work, Brighton Beach Memoirs. Although not part of the Trilogy, Lost in Yonkers is similar in many ways, but more about the struggle to survive in a dysfunctional family and tipping more into serious drama.
The intimacy of the Palm Beach Dramaworks theater brings the audience into the living quarters above the family’s 'Kurnitz's Kandy Store' in Yonkers. No Broadway production could replicate this feeling; it is part of the company’s recipe for constant success.
The play begins shortly after Pearl Harbor, and the breathtaking set reflects the personality of the protagonist, Grandma Kurnitz, aged and worn. But don’t cross Grandma by being careless with the elements of this time capsule, right down to the antimacassars on the couch, or you will likely feel her cane.
Julianne Boyd, founding artistic director of the acclaimed Barrington Stage Company, makes her PBD directorial debut, balancing high wire dramatic moments with Simon’s unique gift, especially in this play, for using humor to move the plot along, not only jokes to relieve the tense moments. She has the benefit of outstanding talent in this production, many in their debut roles at Palm Beach Dramaworks. Boyd embraces the multiple layers and story lines of the play, making each character a central player, each “lost” in his or her own way.
Will Ehren, Victor de
Paula Rocha, Fig Chilcott, Patrick Zeller, and Laura Turnbull
One of the leading actors of the South Florida stage, Laura Turnbull, who has played in many PBD productions, has the central matriarchal role of Grandma Kurnitz, emotionally damaged to the point of cold cruelty towards her family, reflecting the past traumas from her Nazi Germany childhood and family tragedies. Grandma Kurnitz’s hardness has caused lasting damage to those around her.
Turnbull’s portrayal of her character’s steeliness towards her family cuts deeply, and each one finds a way of dealing with it. Her mastery of a thick German / Yiddish accent is utterly authentic, giving further gravitas to her character’s imperiousness. Yet Simon’s depiction of Grandma leaves room for Turnbull to find her character’s humanity and ultimately her vulnerability. It is a master class of acting. Survival is the bottom line for her character and children will listen.
Start with her son, Eddie, who recently lost his wife to cancer and suddenly must find a high paying job in the south during WWII selling scrap iron to pay off his debts, mostly incurred during her end of life care. Lacking options, he needs to find a place for his two sons to live while he is away. Out of dire necessity, he has to turn to the place of his own emotionally damaged upbringing.
Eddie is played by Patrick Zeller (PBD debut), with a deeply emotional, tearful anxiety which acutely affects the audience. His performance is so conflicted that you can feel the helplessness and pain of his character, in that moment of desperation. His repressed anger is tangibly evident as he listens to his mother’s initial rejection, with his back turned to her and the audience with a clenched fist.
Grandma Kurnitz is forced to capitulate and Eddie reluctantly leaves his two teenage sons, Jay, 15, and Arty, 13, with his mother, knowing that they will have to navigate her unwelcoming world with little emotional support as he had to. Jay’s and Arty’s resourcefulness and adolescent humor demonstrate that hope can be found even in the most difficult of circumstances.
Will Ehren (PBD debut) as Jay, displays his character’s broad range of emotions, quick to be a jokester, but fundamentally serious, and feeling the responsibility to protect his father by going along with the unthinkable – living with Grandma –while also protecting his younger brother, Arty. Ehren’s acting abilities run the full range from comic to high drama, with his malleable features and deep-felt acting resources.
Victor de Paula Rocha (PBD debut) as Arty, the 13 year old younger brother, is a study in contradictions. While de Paula Rocha’s interpretation of his character’s sense of innocence and humorous mischievousness provides levity throughout the play, his role nevertheless is packed with subtle moments of lingering grief. His eyes often communicate more than the dialog. It’s clear that he matures quite a bit living with his intractable Grandma.
Will Ehren, Fig Chilcott, Victor de Paula Rocha
Over time, the two brothers establish strong relationships with their Aunts and Uncle, and learn lifelong lessons about family and resilience from their Grandma, not to mention their loving relationship with each other which is sometimes tested. Yet, they never lose their bond. They are on stage for practically the entire play, and their performances reveal much of the drama and heartbreak.
Fig Chilcott (PBD debut) as Bella is at the play’s emotional core and Chilcott unerringly embraces her role portraying the challenged but loveable younger sister who is desperate for love and longs to be held.
Grandma had lost two children, one in infancy and another later in childhood. It is part of her bitterness with the business of living. Bella, at 35, is mildly retarded due to having scarlet fever as an infant and her mother is militantly overprotective, Bella seemingly condemned to a life of dependency. It is she who wants Jay and Arty to move in so she can give them the love which has been suppressed all her life.
And she is longing to receive love, finally thinking she’s found it after meeting an usher at a Movie Theatre, who is also mentally challenged, one she wants to marry. Chilcott’s delivery of Bella’s key monologue, announcing her intention, in front of the entire family is breathtakingly poignant.
This is the stuff of great drama. And Chilcott is just the actor to deliver the goods. You believe her.
Chilcott’s portrayal clearly demonstrates Bella’s development in the play from childlike to one of a more confident person, yet still comporting herself with a sense of innocence and truthfulness, saying to her mother: Maybe I’m still a child but now there’s just enough woman in me to make me miserable. We have to learn how to deal with that somehow, you and me…And it can never be the same anymore.
Victor de Paula Rocha and Jordan Sobel-
Eddie’s brother, Louie is a gangster on the lam, but he is engaging, and milks the laughs as his sister Bella is impatient to make her announcement and he has an eye out the window for thugs pursuing him. Jordan Sobel’s performance is full of machismo and oozes confidence, but the audience reads the fear lurking behind the mask. Things are closing in on him. He exaggerates his tough guy act to cover up his vulnerability. It’s clear he loves his siblings and even his nephews who in a bullying moment try to teach them a few lessons about life. His confrontation with Jay over the contents of his black bag is a high dramatic moment.
Louie’s exchange with his mother, when she refuses to take his “dirty” money, unearned and stolen from others, is Sobel’s shining moment: You can’t get me down, Ma. I’m too tough. You taught me good. And whatever I’ve accomplished in this life, just remember – you’re my partner.
Fig Chilcott, Will Ehren, Victor de Paula Rocha and
Suzanne Ankrum
Suzanne Ankrum plays sister Gert, amusingly squeezing out the humor of a psychosomatic disability symbolic of the smothering effect of her mother’s cruelty. When she speaks, the first part of the sentence sounds normal but then as she completes the sentence she sucks in her breath to the point of becoming breathless. Ankrum effectively presents the playwright’s humorous construct while still expressing some of the play’s serious themes. At least she has partially escaped Grandma’s orbit, having moved away into her own apartment.
This all culminates in those truths Grandma does not want to hear, and the play could have ended on that note, but this is Neil Simon and he finds a way to pull us back over the wall of unabashed tragedy into a healing rapprochement, and a reconciliation of the family. Might there even be a slight smile on Grandma’s face? After all, in spite of her harsh techniques, it has always been about the survival of family.
This extraordinary production is a polished confluence of a great play, a Director infusing pacing and spirit, superb acting, and a production staff second to none. Multiple story lines are brought out, the boys’ maturation, Bella coming of age, and Eddie and Louis’ travails coming to a resolution, all going through transitions with Grandma cracking the cane (and even she learns a thing or two).
Scenic design is by Bert Scott, the stage having the quality of an old sepia photograph, allowing the costumes to stand out. Scott had to find room for seven doors on the stage. The set even captures the verisimilitude of an apartment across the street through two windows, which also serve for audio and lighting.
Carolina Ortiz Herrera (PBD debut) provides the lighting design, letting the nature of the light through the windows delineate the passing of time, either during a day or seasons passing. The light in the apartment communicates a cozy feeling.
Sound design is by Roger Arnold. His challenge is providing transitional sound while actors are changing between multiple scenes (and change they did quite frequently, as well as opening and closing the convertible couch), with some of those sounds an occasional radio broadcast about the war, another marker of the passage of time, and sounds that seemingly come through the open window, a freight train (especially when Eddie appears off stage in a spotlight reading his letters to his boys), the sounds of the city which rise and fall, and let’s not forget the requisite dog barking.
Costume design by resident costume designer, Brian O’Keefe, is nothing short of many (so many characters, so many changes,) and brilliant, to compliment the unique personalities of each character. In particular the life affirming attire of Bella is always in contrast to an apartment from a by-gone era. From Grandma’s authentic 1940’s dresses to Louie’s mob style outfit and Eddie’s wool suit, to Gert’s very stylish dress, we are swept back in time. But the surprise is always Bella, who breezes in with a jaunty hat on her glowing dark curls with some colorful confection of a dress and the time appropriate shoes! She is a bandbox!
Kudos to Jane Lynch, wardrobe supervisor and wig designer and hair stylist, perfectly so early 1940s. And to the work of Amanda Quaid, the dialect coach, which I especially appreciated, having grown up a “New Yawka.” Finally, to the Stage Manager, multiple award-winning Suzanne Clement Jones, who has been with PBD since it first occupied the Clematis Street location, huge credit for keeping this magnificent play humming along as intended.
Palm Beach Dramaworks has opened its 25th season with a blockbuster production of one of the best plays in the pantheon of American drama.
Photos of actors by Curtis Brown
