Neil Simon's
"LOST IN YONKERS"
at the Paper Mill Playhouse
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The new production of Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers," directed by Michael Bloom, at the Paper Mill Playhouse, is a must-see. It is an exceptionally well-done production--one of the best dramas I've ever seen staged at Paper Mill, and I've been attending Paper Mill since my youth.
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Rosemary Prinz, at age 80, is giving a kind of master class in acting on that stage, in her beautifully nuanced--and utterly believable--portrayal of the family's tough, aging matriarch. Prinz, who became the nation's highest-paid soap-opera actress during her 12-year tenure as "Penny Hughes" on TV's "As the World Turns," may be best known to theater-goers for her work in the original New York production of "Steel Magnolias." She has been acting professionally for 64 years. Her early work included touring with Diana Barrymore in "Joan of Lorraine" in 1946, making her screen debut in a US Army film in 1948, and making her Broadway debut with Jack Lemmon in 1952. (She later reunited with Lemmon on Broadway in "Tribute.") And she is certainly no stranger to Neil Simon, having appeared on Broadway in his "Prisoner of Second Avenue."
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| Rosemary Prinz |
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Her grim, unflinching performance here in "Lost in Yonkers" is, for me, a high point of the current theater season. Wisely, she makes no attempt to soften or sentimentalize the character that Simon has created--a cold, emotionally contained woman who has, unintentionally, damaged each of her various children.
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| Sara Surrey ("Bella"), Rosemary Prinz ("Grandma") |
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| Every detail of Prinz's portrayal of the grandmother--from the accent, to the rigid body language, to the controlling way she addresses all of her children--is right on the money.
In the play, which is set in 1942-43, one of the grandmother's children--the well-meaning but ineffectual "Eddie"--has recently lost his wife. He now has to go on the road to make a living; he entrusts his two sons to his mother's care. The two brothers are uncomfortable around their grandmother--as well they should be--and don't want to live with her; but they have nowhere else to go. And so they take up residence in her home, in Yonkers, above the candy store she long has run.
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The younger of the two brothers in this play, "Arty" (age 13 1/2), is a kind of surrogate for Neil Simon--much the way the younger of the two brothers in Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" is a surrogate for Simon. These two plays--among the most affecting, substantive, and deftly written of Simon's many works--have their roots in Simon's own feelings of uncertainty while growing up. And they are among the most difficult of Simon's plays to revive successfully since so much of the weight of the dramatic action falls onto the shoulders of a young actor. And good adolescent actors--or actors who are young enough to convincingly play adolescents--are exceedingly hard to find. (For the original productions of a couple of his plays, Simon was extraordinarily lucky to have a young--soon-to-be-famous--newcomer lighting up the stage: Matthew Broderick.)
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Maxwell Beer (age 13 1/2), playing young "Arty" in this production, gives as fresh, natural, and appealing a performance as I've seen any juvenile actor offer in years. It's a remarkable performance--buoyant, spirit-lifting, and wholly unaffected.
The formidable grandmother in this play (Rosemary Prinz's character) has trampled the souls of her own children, and we don't want her to do the same to this optimistic young innocent; that possibility creates a valuable source of dramatic tension in this play.
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| The two brothers: Alex Wyse as "Jay," Maxwell Beer as "Arty" |
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But young Arty ultimately proves a match for the grandmother, and emerges with his vitality undiminished. Beer carries off the part beautifully, and provides a perfect counter-weight onstage for Prinz.
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| Alex Wyse, Maxwell Beer, Sara Surrey |
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| In my years of reviewing for The New York Post, I was reminded repeatedly that good young actors are all too rare; and I've certainly seen poor ones ruin a fair number of shows. (And having also helped run auditions for actors--as a playwright, director, and producer--I am even more aware of how few good young actors are out there; when we cast my "Seven Little Foys" at the Fringe Festival in New York, we had to reach as far as Massachusetts and Florida to find the needed kids.)
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This is young Beer's professional debut. He's appeared previously in lots of plays at the famed French Woods performing arts camp. We'll see more of him, I'm sure.
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John Plumpis is just perfect as "Eddie," the well-meaning but ineffectual, unassertive father of the two boys. He seems born to play the role. And Sara Surrey shines as the boys' childlike "Aunt Bella." It's not an easy role for an actor to take on, because Simon has written a character that seems, at times, to be a simpleton--but actually has keen understandings of those around her. Surrey finds both the naivete and the wisdom in the character. Alex Wyse, as the older brother, "Jay," and Patricia Buckley, as the wheezing "Aunt Gert," do justice to their parts.
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| From left to right: Sara Surrey ("Bella"), J. Anthony Crane ("Uncle Louie"), Rosemary Prinz ("Grandma"). |
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While I got enjoyment out of seeing J. Anthony Crane as the gangster in the family ("Uncle Louie")--Crane projects a likeable personality--I know there's more to that part than he's found, and wish the director had brought it out of him. There are other layers to that role--which was successfully originated on Broadway by Kevin Spacey, and then played in the film version of "Lost in Yonkers" by Richard Dreyfuss--that are missing here.
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Crane is giving a surface portrayal of an uncle who's mixed up in criminal activities; but sometimes I felt he was in a different play from the others on stage. Every line uttered in this play by the grandmother, her son "Eddie," and her grandson "Arty" felt completely real. The stereotypical gangster that Crane is giving us might be more at home in a production of "Guys and Dolls." The character should--but doesn't at this point--seem as finely shaded and nuanced as any other character on that stage. Simon has written a conflicted character, not a cartoon-type gangster. His intelligence and self-doubts both need to be presented more clearly.
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| Sara Surrey, Alex Wyse, Maxwell Beer |
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| I don't want to make too much of any minor reservations I have about this production, though. For the whole show is immensely satisfying. It's the most fully realized production I've seen at a regional theater in a good while.
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And the roles feel wonderfully "lived in." The actors are inhabiting the characters so well, I wish the production could be extended, or transfer to New York, or videotaped for TV. (Although we'd probably need a healthier economy for such things to be possible; the solid recent Broadway revival of "Brighton Beach Memoirs," alas, did not survive long, despite several very fine performances.)
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The set, designed by Michael Schweikardt, is excellent. And wise use of big-band-era recordings--including an aptly chosen final "Be Careful, It's My Heart" that seems to comment on what we've just witnessed--enhance the night.
The Paper Mill Playhouse, incidentally, helps get us in the mood even before the play itself begins, with evocative Glenn Miller hits playing in the lobby.
Neil Simon won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony award (for best play) for "Lost in Yonkers." This play has plenty of laughs, but plenty of real drama, too.
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This production, co-produced by New Jersey' Paper Mill Playhouse (Mark S. Hoebee, Artistic Director; Mark W. Jones, Executive Director), Florida's Maltz Jupiter Theatre (Andrew Kato, Artistic Director; Tricia Trimble, Managing Director), and Ohio's Cleveland Playhouse (Michael Bloom, Artistic Director; Kevin Moore, Managing Director) runs through March 14, 2010 at the Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, NJ. For tickets, call 973-376-4343, or click onto www.papermill.org.
-- CHIP DEFFAA
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