Lost in Yonkers

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Original Broadway poster

Lost in Yonkers is an award-winning play by Neil Simon.

Set during World War II, the coming of age tale focuses on brothers Arty and Jay, who are left in the care of their Grandma Kurnitz and Aunt Bella in Yonkers, New York by their desperate father Eddie, who needs to work as a traveling salesman to pay off debts incurred following his wife's death. 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 lam, while her sister Gert suffers from a breathing problem with causes more psychological than physical. Missing much of the sentimentality of the plays comprising Simon's earlier Eugene Trilogy, Lost in Yonkers climaxes with a dramatic confrontation between bitter mother and lonely daughter that creates a permanent fissure in this highly dysfunctional family.

After eleven previews, the Broadway production, directed by Gene Saks, opened on February 21, 1991 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where it ran for 780 performances. The original cast included Irene Worth as Grandma, Mercedes Ruehl as Bella, Kevin Spacey as Louie, Lauren Klein as Gert, Danny Gerard as Arty, Jamie Marsh as Jay, and Mark Blum as Eddie. Replacements later in the run included Rosemary Harris, Anne Jackson, and Mercedes McCambridge as Grandma; Lucie Arnaz, Didi Conn, and Jane Kaczmarek as Bella; and Bruno Kirby and Alan Rosenberg as Louie.

Simon adapted his play for a 1993 feature film directed by Martha Coolidge. Worth and Ruehl reprised their stage roles, and Richard Dreyfuss was cast as Louie. Bella's beau Johnny, an unseen character in the play, was portrayed by David Strathairn.