Published on: Wednesday, November 04, 2009

By David Cannon, Sentinel Arts Critic

There are quite a few reasons to see “Lost in Yonkers,” playing at Theater J. After writing plays for decades, Neil Simon finally won his only Pulitzer Prize for this script. With its mixture of comedy and drama, “Yonkers” ranks with “Brighton Beach Memoirs” as Simon’s best play. The production is directed by Jerry Whiddon, who many will remember as long time artistic director at Round House Theater. 

But the pivotal roles of 13-year-old Arty and his 15-year-old brother, Jay, are being performed by two Montgomery County high school students. In the story, set in the early years of World War II, the children are left at a relative’s house while their father looks for work down South, and we see the actions in this Yonkers household unfold through the children’s eyes. These are not small parts – the children are in nearly every scene of the play and are on stage almost continuously during the first act.

I recently spoke with both actors before rehearsal. Max Talisman, a sophomore at Sandy Spring Friends School, is playing 13-year-old Arty. His first professional role was in the Studio Theater production of “Caroline, or Change,” which won the Helen Hayes Award Winner for Best Musical. Max considers that play “an amazing learning experience” and notes that several actors he met in that production he now considers mentors. “Yonkers” is his first professional straight play and he took the role partially “to prove to myself that I could act in a nonmusical” work.

Kyle Schliefer, who is playing Arty’s 15-year-old brother, Jay, is a senior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda. He has numerous professional credits including “Lord of the Flies” at Round House Theater, the ensemble in Olney Theatre’s “Fiddler on the Roof,” and understudy for the title role in Olney’s “Peter Pan.” Kyle has also performed off Broadway and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in Scotland, in “Songs For A New World.”

Both actors credit Director Jerry Whiddon for their performances. Schliefer noted that the director “does not tell you to do it this way … but gives you ideas, that opens doors.”

The play itself is very well done, with Talisman and Schliefer doing well in these demanding roles. However, as the play progresses, it starts to center on Tana Hicken as the stern grandmother and Holly Twyford as her daughter with a slight cognitive disability. Twyford’s character begins to chafe under her mother’s inflexible control and that leads to several dramatic confrontation scenes in the second half. Best of all, neither Twyford nor Hicken let their characters devolve into stereotypes, which could all too easily happen with roles like these.

There is a lovely, mostly monochrome set by Daniel Conway and great period costumes by Misha Kachiman to set that 1942 mood as America slowly pulled itself out of the Great Depression and went to war.

The play is not perfect. While Marcus Kyd does a great job as Uncle Louie, a small time gangster, and Lise Bruneau is great fun as Aunt Gert, these are very superfluous roles. Gert is especially a one joke part with very little to do in the play. Despite the sizeable cast, the drama quickly centers on Hicken and Twyford, and the two boys who may be the first generation to escape so many of the problems that wrecked such havoc with their parents’ and grandparents’ lives.

“Lost in Yonkers” continues at Theater J through Nov. 29. For more information, call 1-800-494-TIXS or go online to http://www.theaterj.org/.