YSHS kids play both comedy, drama in ‘Lost in Yonkers’

Peter Keahey and Lara Donnelly (front) play Eddie and Bella, the brother and sister of a dysfunctional Jewish-American family in Neil Simon’s ‘Lost in Yonkers.’ The play will be performed by the Yellow Springs High School Drama Club on Nov. 2, 3, 4, 9, 10 and 11 in the Mills Lawn auditorium. From left in back are Adam Zaremsky as Jay, Natalie Sanders as Gert, Elliot Cromer as Arty, Max Fleishman as Eddie and Meg Hild as Grandma Kurnitz.

By Lauren Heaton

Picture a New York City row house in 1942. The icy matriarch of an immigrant Jewish family skulks through the rooms while her grown children cower under her monumental disapproval. In Neil Simon’s tragic story of a dysfunctional family, Lost in Yonkers, the characters use comedy to survive. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play will be presented this weekend and next by the Yellow Springs High School Drama Club.

The play opens tomorrow at the Mills Lawn auditorium, showing at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, Nov. 2, 3 and 9, 10, and again at 2 p.m. on Sundays, Nov. 4 and 11. Tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for seniors and students. Call 319-8030 to reserve seats.

“This play is a Simonesque blend of Jewish culture and humor, and it’s a serious exploration of what it is to be a Jew in very hard times,” Director Andrea Auten said last week.

She may be two generations and several continents apart from her stage role, but Meg Hild is a haunting portrait of Grandma Kurnitz as she shuffles across stage, her accent and cadence a dead ringer for an old German immigrant whose miserable life has hardened her.

Playing the polar opposite characters, Elliot Cromer retreats into the body of a 13-year old Arty and Adam Zaremsky plays his older brother Jay, whose turns at exclamatory joy and terrific fear invite naive Aunt Bella, played by Lara Donnelly, and even paranoid Aunt Gert, played by Natalie Sanders, to soothe them.

But Uncle Louie, played by Peter Keahey, has too much “moxy” to sympathize or be controlled by his intolerable mother. Max Fleishman as Jay and Arty’s father, Eddie, bears all the emotion for the family in the serio-comedy directed by Auten.

Everyone loves a comedy, especially the students who love the response their quick-witted, comedic timing draws from the audience, Auten said. But it was time to add drama to the repertoire, which meant preparing the actors in ways they weren’t necessarily used to, she said.

It meant teaching Donnelly to play an adult who acts like a child and teaching Hild to be okay with being cruel to her classmates. Keahey, who’s “as kind as they come,” had to learn how to be imposing and frightening, Auten said. Zaremsky and Cromer had to remember what it was like to be naive and scared, and Fleishman had to learn to portray a grieving widower.

“They fell right into their slots, and it was because there’s such maturity, intelligence and kindness with this group,” Auten said.

According to Hild, Lost in Yonkers is about a woman who has experienced multiple tragedies and is trying to protect her children from that depravity by teaching them not to feel. Donnelly said the play is “basically about mommy issues,” and her character, Bella, gets to clarify on stage the psychosis and lack of love that is slowly destroying her family. Eddie is the “crybaby,” the “weakest” one in the family, Fleishman said of his character, while Sanders said Gert is the most tragic.

To settle them into their roles, Auten rehearsed by placing a verb in each player’s pocket and having each character perform and defend that action to the others. Eventually they all guessed each other’s verbs, and the exercise gave them a deeper sense not only of their own characters but of others’ characters too, she said. Cast members also spent a lot of time discussing in detail the psyche of the family members and their motivations and limitations, Auten said.

The cast, whose dialect training came from D’Arcy Smith and whose combative movement training came from Bruce Cromer, will be well prepared for this year’s spring musical Fiddler on the Roof, another story about a Jewish family living in troubling times, this time in czarist Russia. Costumes were coordinated by Judy Parker, set design was organized by Jerome Borchers, and props were acquired by Kim Westendorf, all of whom were aided by “swarms of adults doing all aspects” of helping to set the stage, Auten said.

Megan Kaplon and Zane Reichert served as stage managers for Lost in Yonkers, and the following is a list of the technical crew that helped out: Jacob Auten, Nathan Auten, Eileen Borchers, Olivia Chen, Michelle Click, Acala Cresci, Danielle Doubt, Belle-Pilar Fleming, Anna Forster, Maya Hardman, Tyler Kimball, Clara Lang-Ezekiel, Justine Mangan, Kevin Mayer, Kyle Miller, Rachel Misik, Katie Nickels, Rory Papania, Jaimie Paul, Eric Rudolf, Miranda Russell, Andy Sherwood, Lydia Stutzman, Amber Tilton, Claire Triplett, Katie Triplett, Anne Weigand and Lauren Westendorf.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com