Lost In Yonkers
by Neil Simon

Name: Lost In Yonkers
Brand: Neil Simon
SKU: 9780573693366
Rating: 3.88 (4307 reviews)

Broadway

Lost In Yonkers Book Cover — Lost In Yonkers Cover

Highlights

Small Cast

Female

Male

120 mins 1940s/WWII Role(s) for Teen(s) Interior Set Period Costumes American Comedy

Awards & Recognition

Drama Desk Award Pulitzer Prize Tony Award

Winner! 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Winner! Four 1991 Tony Awards, including Best Play Winner! Four 1991 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding New Play

Synopsis

A coming of age tale that focuses on brothers Arty and Jay, left in the care of their Grandma Kurnitz and Aunt Bella in Yonkers, New York.

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 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 run, while her sister Gert suffers from a breathing problem with causes more psychological than physical problems.

Missing much of the sentimentality of the plays comprising Simon's earlier Eugene trilogy, Lost in Yonkers climaxes with a dramatic confrontation between embittered mother and lonely daughter that creates a permanent fissure in this highly dysfunctional family.

Press Reviews

"Broadway desperately needs a comedy, a drama and a hit. With Lost in Yonkers, Mr. Simon has given us all three."
— Wall Street Journal

"One of Simon’s most impressive and funniest plays."
— New York Daily News

"Laughter and tears have come together in a new emotional truth. There are moments in this play when you experience a new kind of laughter for Simon, a silent laughter that doesn’t explode into a yuk but implodes straight into your heart."
— Newsweek

Characters

Character	Gender	Age	Description
JAY 16.	—	16	16.
ARTY 13 and a half.	—	13	13 and a half.
EDDIE Their father, 41.	male	—	Their father, 41.
BELLA Mid-thirties, neat and sweet and pretty.	—	—	Mid-thirties, neat and sweet and pretty.
GRANDMA KURNITZ Eddie and Bella’s mother, a big woman, buxom, with a strong body, 70-odd years of age.	female	70	Eddie and Bella’s mother, a big woman, buxom, with a strong body, 70-odd years of age.
LOUIE Her other son, 36, doesn’t look like he’d be the hugging type	male	—	Her other son, 36, doesn’t look like he’d be the hugging type
AUNT	—	—	—
GERT Mid-to-late thirties, another of Grandma Kurnitz’s children.	—	—	Mid-to-late thirties, another of Grandma Kurnitz’s children.