Being Lost in Yonkers

TORCH Playersโ€™ director Maurice Oโ€™Sullivan reflects on the works of Neil Simon. โ€œA long time ago I did a full length play by Neil called โ€˜The Gingerbread Ladyโ€™ which weย presented in the Belltable in 2001. We had intended taking it on the festival circuit but festivals were cancelled because of Foot and Mouth diseaseโ€ (along with much else in a government directed campaign of containment).

โ€œI have always liked his plays, especially when they are not pure comedy.โ€

Understood, for Neil Simon is known the world over for arch and tellingย works such as โ€˜The Odd Coupleโ€™ ย and โ€˜The Goodbye Girlโ€™. And who can lose sight of Robert Redford in โ€˜Barefoot in the Parkโ€™? โ€˜Sweet Charityโ€™ and โ€˜Biloxi Bluesโ€™ remain popular for musical and dramatic revivals. He can do rough with the smooth.

In his lifetime, he won three Tonys in 17 nominations. The focus of Torch light, โ€˜Lost in Yonkersโ€™, won the ย 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Advertisement

From the directorโ€™s chair, Maurice wants people to understand context for Neil Simonโ€™s writing, a story of two brothers sent to live with largely uncharitable relatives.

His own parents had had a chaotic, fractious relationship. At school the young writer was desperately shy. In later years, hear the heart ache in this revealing admission in interview with Lawrence Grobel: โ€œI think part of what made me a comedy writer is the blocking out of some of the really ugly, painful things in my childhood and covering it up with a humorous attitudeย โ€ฆ do something to laugh until I was able to forget what was hurting.โ€

Left, Joanne Oโ€™Brien (Bella), Mary Jones (Gert), Gary Oโ€™Hanlon (Jay) Adam Stapleton (Arty) Peter Hayes (Louie) and Dan Mooney (Eddie). Seated, Brรญd Hartnett (Granny Kurnitz). Photo: Stuart Mackey

Onwards and forwards toย  this material and the hard working team that Torch Players are, steered by Maurice Oโ€™Sullivan.

He makes the point that big parts for ย teenage boys were a delay in staging โ€˜Lost in Yonkersโ€™ before now. Open auditions, a trawl of schools and a plug in Arts Page drew interest and โ€œwe chose Gary Oโ€™Hanlon and Adam Stapleton, bothย  aged 17. Iโ€™d put a shout out to all the drama schools, Limerick School of Acting, Spotlight Stage School, Expressive Arts and to Maeve McGrath who has a school of acting in the county.โ€

Having the emotional maturity as well as stage presence to work with this playโ€™s โ€œmix of comedy and heartbreakโ€ was essential. โ€œYonkers is in New York state, located above The Bronx and it is still very urban. The story is set in 1942 during World War II and itโ€™s kind of autobiographical in the sense that Neil Simon and his brother were often farmed out to relatives.โ€

Within his fiction, the boysโ€™ father is widowed and becomes indebted to loan sharks for $9,000. The boys are Arty, aged 14 and Jay, 15, and their father (Dan Mooney) has to go trawling down Southern states around the railroads for high-earning seasonal work.

Their temporary home from home is bleak.

โ€œThey have a coldhearted, stern ย Granny (Brรญd Hartnett). The family are Jews who escaped from Germany in World War 1 and came to America physically and emotionally damaged from the war ย years. Aunt Bella (Joanne Oโ€™Brien) is emotionally and mentally arrested in her growth and sheโ€™s childlike but very loving.

โ€œTheir home is not a pleasant stay for the nine months but this is very much a family drama. Everyone is affected by the grandmother.โ€

Uncle Louie (Peter Hayes) is half a mobster; thereโ€™s Gert (Mary Jones) whose trauma is reflected in a speech impediment.

The production team aiding this production is top notch with Pius McGrath on lighting, Gerry Lombard managing stage and Sheenagh Murphy crafting costumes of that austere era, mid-war and post Depression. Booking for March 10 to 14 in Belltableย www.limetreetheatre.ieย – and Torch packs out the joint.