Lost in Yonkers
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Lost in Yonkers is a Tony Award-winning play by Neil Simon concerning two brothers growing up during World War II. He adapted it for a feature film in 1993.
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[edit] Plot synopsis
The coming of age tale focuses on brothers Arty and Jay, who are left in the care of their Grandma Kurnitz and Aunt Bella in Yonkers, New York by their desperate father Eddie, who needs to work as a traveling salesman to pay off debts incurred following his wife's death. Grandma is a severe, frightfully intimidating immigrant who terrified her children as they were growing up, damaging each of them to varying degrees. Bella is a sweet but mentally slow and highly excitable woman who longs to marry an usher at the local movie house so she can escape the oppressive household and create a life and family of her own. Her brother Louie is a small-time, tough-talking hoodlum who is on the lam, while her sister Gert suffers from a breathing problem with causes more psychological than physical. Missing much of the sentimentality of the plays comprising Simon's earlier Eugene Trilogy, Lost in Yonkers climaxes with a dramatic confrontation between bitter mother and lonely daughter that creates a permanent fissure in this highly dysfunctional family.
[edit] Broadway production
After eleven previews, the Broadway production, directed by Gene Saks, opened on February 21, 1991 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where it ran for 780 performances. The original cast included Irene Worth as Grandma, Mercedes Ruehl as Bella, Kevin Spacey as Louie, Lauren Klein as Gert, Danny Gerard as Arty, Jamie Marsh as Jay, and Mark Blum as Eddie. Replacements later in the run included Rosemary Harris, Anne Jackson, and Mercedes McCambridge as Grandma; Lucie Arnaz, Didi Conn, and Jane Kaczmarek as Bella; and Bruno Kirby and Alan Rosenberg as Louie.
[edit] Critical reception
In his review in the New York Times, Frank Rich said, "Of all the odd couples created by Neil Simon in his 30-year career in the theater, none has been less funny or more passionately acted than the battling mother and daughter indelibly embodied by Irene Worth and Mercedes Ruehl in Lost in Yonkers . . . [it] is hardly Mr. Simon's most accomplished work, but when the riveting Ms. Worth and Ms. Ruehl take center stage to tear at each other and the audience, the wounds run so deep that one feels it just may be his most honest." [1]
[edit] Awards and nominations
- Tony Award for Best Play (winner)
- Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Ruehl, winner)
- Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play (Spacey, winner)
- Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play (Worth, winner)
- Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play (nominee)
- Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play (winner)
- Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play (Ruehl, winner)
- Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (Spacey, winner)
- Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play (Worth, winner)
- Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costumes (nominee)
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama (Simon, winner)
[edit] Film adaptation
Simon adapted his play for a 1993 feature film directed by Martha Coolidge. Worth and Ruehl reprised their stage roles, and Richard Dreyfuss was cast as Louie. Bella's beau Johnny, an unseen character in the play, was portrayed by David Strathairn.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said it "has a special quality to it. All of the performances are good, but one of them, by Mercedes Ruehl, casts a glow over the entire film . . . The first time we see her, she is bravely cheerful, as if she believes the happy endings in the movies she loves so much. Only gradually do we begin to understand the darker side of her character, the unhealthy way in which her mother has suppressed her natural exuberance. By the end of the movie, when Aunt Bella is finally finds a way to live life on her own terms, we're almost surprised how much we've come to care about her." [2]
In his review in the Washington Post, Desson Howe stated, "Ruehl, a sort of Jewish Blanche DuBois, imbues her role with wonderful nuances . . . she's entertaining to watch, an effortless, natural joy." [3]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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