Reviewed by Tony Annicone

 

The Arctic Playhouse’s current show is Neil Simon’s 1991 Pulitzer Prize winning play, “Lost in Yonkers.” The show is set in 1942 and it examines the relationships in the emotionally crippled Kurnitz family. The show is a coming of age tale that focuses on brothers, Artie and Jay, left in the care of their Grandmother Kurnitz and Aunt Bella in Yonkers, NY. Their desperate father, Eddie, works as a traveling salesman to pay off debts incurred following the death of his wife. Grandma is a severe, frightfully intimidating immigrant who terrified her children as they were growing up, damaging them in varying degrees. Bella is a sweet but mentally slow and highly excitable woman who longs to marry the usher at a local movie house so she can escape the oppressive household. Bella’s brother, Louie is a small time, tough-talking hoodlum who is on the run, while sister, Gert suffers from a breathing problem whose cause is more psychological than physical. Neil Simon shows why the five adults in this show have become the way they are and how it affects the two teenage boys left in their midst. Directors Christian O’Brien and Eileen Goretaya blend the comic and dramatic moments together splendidly, leaving the audience laughing and crying at all the appropriate moments. With their direction, Christian and Eileen’s cast wins a thunderous standing ovation at the close of the show.

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