Legendary Playwright Neil Simon’s ‘Lost in Yonkers’ Hits the Stage

At the Garvin Theater this October, Jonathan Fox directs Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers. One of Simon’s later plays, Yonkers first hit the stage in the late 90s, where Fox saw the show on Broadway. And while Fox hasn’t seen the show (or the film adaptation) since then, Lost in Yonkers stuck with him.

Presented by the Theater Group at Santa Barbara City College, the play is about a Brooklyn family in the mid-20^th century. Eddie Kurnitz incurs sinking medical debt when his wife suffers from and ultimately succumbs to a terminal illness. Eddie drops his two teenage sons with his mother in Yonkers to pursue money-making opportunities elsewhere to settle his financial woes.

“The two boys are feeling lost,” says Fox. “Every character feels lost. Even the matriarch feels lost.” The family consists of odd Aunt Bella and eccentric Aunt Gert; minor gangster Uncle Louie, who’s “laying low”; and no-nonsense Grandma Kurnitz. Lost in Yonkers follows the boys as they navigate these new dynamics with their quirky relations, creating lasting change in themselves and the family.

This play is a departure from Simon’s usual comic style. “He’d been famous for plays like The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, which are heavy on jokes,” says Fox. “In this play, the comedy is coming out of the characters and their experiences as opposed to just writing clever jokes. There’s a maturity to it.” While many of Simon’s plays dipped from the well of his own autobiography, Yonkers is built, instead, around the Simon family legend of a mysterious “Uncle Louie,” apparently a gangster/accountant who disappeared one day into the mist. “Working on the play gives me a respect for Neil Simon outside his ability to make people laugh,” says Fox. “It gives me respect for him as a dramatist.”

Lost in Yonkers runs October 9–26 at the Garvin Theater. Click here for additional information and tickets.