"Lost in Yonkers" at Magic Circle Theater

(Left: Simple set, strong emotions)


Yesterday afternoon at the Cisneros' studio I told Mary Young, "Yes, we're coming up tonight to see your show!" Wendy Young Carey smiled knowingly and said "She's mean!"

And who would know better, after all, than Mary's daughter?

I went with the DMTC crowd Saturday night to see the Neil Simon play "Lost in Yonkers" at Magic Circle Theater's Tower Theater in Roseville. It was the first time I've seen this show. An excellent show featuring strong performances, not only by Mary, but also by Lee Marie Kelly as Aunt Bella, Kirk Blackinton as Uncle Louie, and the two teenage boys, Dustin Dunbar (Jay) and Jordan Mahallati (Arty).

There is a kind of claustrophobic, hopeless, helpless sense to the show, which takes place entirely in the living room of an apartment above 'Kurnitz's Kandy Store' in Yonkers, NY, in 1942-43. Out of necessity, the two teenage sons are left with their grandma for nearly a year to help her run the store while their dad and aunts and uncle try their best to make ends meet. Everyone in the family lives on the edge of desperation; a kind of economic poverty and familial desperation that was very, very common during the Depression and World War II, and which lingered well after, where people employed all sorts of half measures to keep families together and keep food on the table.

The strange thing about growing older is that now I find my youth seems to have had more in common with the Kurnitz's youth than, say, my own nephew's youth, both in time, and in attitude. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother when I was young. Even though my grandmother was not as stern as Grandma Kurnitz, the times were better, the locales were different, and even though the visits never lasted as long, there was the still the same sense of having to function under different, arbitrary rules and of losing key freedoms (like mobility). Remember YOUR relatives when you were young? Remember the fold-out bed?

Plus, Dustin Dunbar's appearance is similar to that of an old high school friend of mine, and so I felt like I had entered a time warp to a place I already knew well (and felt much better seeing in a play than experiencing again).

A good job, well-done here! Hooray for Neil Simon!

Notable too was the convivial atmosphere established Saturday night between "Lost in Yonkers" Director Brent Null, Sarah Null (who ran over after "Hello, Dolly" finished at Magic Circle's nearby Roseville Theater), and the rest of the DMTC crowd. Five years have passed and hard feelings have dissipated (something Grandma Kurnitz would not have understood).

(Left: Very pretty display in the lobby of Roseville's Tower Theater.)