Listened to via streaming courtesy of LATW. Cast is:
Barbara Bain as Grandma Kurnitz
Gia Carides as Gert
Dan Castellaneta as Louie
Ben Diskin as Jay
Arye Gross as Eddie
Roxanne Hart as Bella
Kenneth Schmidt as Arty

While this play has quite a lot of humor, it is almost all bittersweet. The Kurnitz family is disfunctional in a way that Eugene O'Neill would recognize. Grandma Kurnitz is a German Jew who emigrated to America at some unspecified time in the past (but before WW1) and from the very start of the play, it is clear that this is no doting grandma but to the contrary a harsh and strict one. As the play unfolds, both the audience and the boys slowly come to learn something of her background and to understand that appearance isn't everything.

The character of the boys' aunt Bella is a masterpiece. Bella is mentally challenged as a result of a severe childhood illness (scarlet fever??). She is treated by the adults of the family as a child and while her siblings love her and try to protect her, they don't really take her seriously. But despite her disability - or perhaps because of it - she is the only one who understands Grandma Kurnitz and eventually the one who can tell her the truth about things. ( )

While the story was interesting and had a lot of dramatic points, I found myself unsatisfied with the ending. I didn't feel that anything was accomplished or any major lesson was learned. It was just a story that started and ended pretty much the same way. One good point was the author's use of humor. The dialog was very comedic at certain points. It was kind of hard to tell who the main character was supposed to be or what the main conflict of the plot was in the play, which is why I think I was dissatisfied with it. I guess you could say I kind of got Lost in Yonkers as well as the characters. I think this would be a good read for any teens who like reading about family dramas or historical time periods. ( )

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