THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 17, 1994 TAG: 9411150119
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: Montague Gammon III
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Papa Simon has a brand new bag.
``Lost in Yonkers'' isn't just another Neil Simon script in which one-line gags are strung together to substitute for true dialogue.
It's a Neil Simon script in which gut-spilling monologues of self-revelation are linked together to imitate emotional realism.
At the Little Theatre of Norfolk, the play is blessed with three actresses whose performances are by turns touching, sharp, precise, and delicate.
Phyllis Guinazzo and Felice Gilbert-Rubin dominate the show, and Marisa Marsey has a small but deftly executed role. Simon wrote less interesting roles for the males, who in this cast tend to be, shall we say, dramatically challenged.
The action takes place in Yonkers, between 1942 and 1943. A widower, father of two boys aged about 10 and 13, finds that he must board them with his harridan of a mother for the better part of a year.
The family history is the stuff of which nightmares, and Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams dreams, are made. Simon, incidentally, proves that he is neither O'Neill nor Williams.
Grandma is a domineering, mean-spirited matriarch whose abusive discipline turned her children into emotional wrecks.
Bella, the 35-year-old daughter who still lives with her, has the personality and the mental capabilities of a child. Eddie, the widower, is described as being ineffectual and is apparently beset with psychosomatic illnesses. Uncle Louie is a low ranking mobster. Gert has a weird speech defect that leaves her gasping for air if she speaks more than two full sentences.
We are meant to believe that Grandma's behavior - locking one of her children in a closet for hours, punishing another for talking in her sleep, accusing them of theft from the family shop when she herself had hidden the missing items, and generally intimidating them physically and emotionally - can be explained by her experiences as a child in antisemitic Germany.
Maybe so, but it still seems unlikely that such a character, who boasts that she has not cried since childhood, would suddenly break down in tears when finally confronted by her emotionally disturbed daughter. It is even less likely that a grown woman who literally forgets where she lives, and whose emotional age is about 9, could summon up the articulation that Simon gives Bella for her climatic speech.
Despite Simon's departures from credibility, Gilber-Rubin and Guinazzo genuinely earn their applause.
Guinazzo is at her best early in the play, while she establishes Bella's childish, fey frailty. It's a part unlike anything this experienced actress has been seen to do recently, and the stretch clearly serves her well. Stepping far outside her previously displayed range, Guinazzo achieves a notable consistency and is wholly convincing.
Gilbert-Rubin is sharp as the proverbial tack in the role of Grandma. Whether one sees the old woman as a victim or a victimizer or equal parts of each, the clarity and definition with which Gilbert-Rubin delivers even the smallest line, gesture, or facial shift etch a detailed portrait.
Gert appears late in the play. Marsey brings a crispness and ease of her performance, and makes one regret that the character had so little time on stage.
David Burton directed, and deserves credit for guiding all three actresses so adroitly. ILLUSTRATION: AT A GLANCE
What: ``Lost in Yonkers,'' by Neil Simon.
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
Where: Little Theatre of Norfolk, 801 Claremont Ave.
Tickets: 627-8551.
by CNB