‘Little Me’: A Fun-Time Romp from Encores!

Little Me, the 1962 Neil Simon/Cy Coleman/Carolyn Leigh musical, is probably not a rare undervalued masterpiece that needs to be lovingly restored to appreciate its true worth. But the current joyful production by Encores! is as welcome as a cup of hot chocolate laced with whipped cream during these snowy, icy, sleety, bitterly cold days and dreary nights that have been the hallmark of this winter in New York. 

Little Me is a laugh-filled show with TV sketch comedy roots (Simon famously launched his career writing skits for Sid Caesar, who starred in the original Broadway production) and a tuneful score, with music by Coleman and lyrics by Leigh. 

The story unfolds through the frame of depicting the writing of the memoirs of the fictional stage, screen, and television star Belle Poitrine, as told to “Patrick Dennis,” the pen name of the author of the book on which the musical is based (as well as the author of the more highly successful Auntie Mame).   

But even though Belle’s life story provides the shape for the show, the musical rises or falls on the strength of the male lead, who portrays 7 different men in Belle’s life, most of whom die before the end. 

With the Encores! production, we are most fortunate in that the shoulders on whom this task falls belong to Christian Borle, who has a keen and mischievous sense of comic timing reminiscent of Groucho Marx or Charlie Chaplin (this was even truer of Borle’s performance as Black Stache in Peter and the Starcatcher). 

Borle runs on and off the stage, going through quick costume and personality changes throughout the entire show. (This includes the requisite gag where he has to “ad lib” a cover-up for an incomplete change in appearance). The best of these characterizations is that of Fred Poitrine, the terribly nearsighted and socially inept World War I doughboy, who endearingly sings “Real Live Girl” to Belle, and marries her just in time to legitimize the ensuing birth of her daughter before he marches off to his untimely death by paper cut. 

As good as Borle is, this is far from a one-person show, which boasts wonderful performances from the entire cast, including Rachel York as the young Belle; the marvelous Judy Kaye as the older Belle; Tony Yazbeck as George, the boy-next-door turned hotshot nightclub owner (he delivers a terrific “I’ve Got Your Number”); Harriet Harris as the snobbish mother of Noble, Belle’s one true love; and Lee Wilkof and Lewis J. Stadlen as Belle’s agents, the Buchsbaum brothers. Stadlen, who most recently appeared with Nathan Lane in The Nance, is another theatrical stalwart who took the world by storm when he gloriously pulled off the multiple-roles acting feat by playing five characters in the acclaimed 1974 revival of Candide.   

This production also boasts outstanding work by the singers and dancers of the chorus.  And might I add, the choreography by Joshua Bergasse is so creative it is a wonder to me he has not become a major Broadway fixture. 

With Little Me, Encores! is entering its 21^st year of producing short-term revivals of Broadway musicals, and it almost seems to top itself year after year.  Minimalist set designs have become increasingly clever (the sinking of The Gigantic in Little Me could give Titanic: The Musical a run for its money at the concert production at Avery Fisher Hall later this month), and the eschewing of script-in-hand performances by the cast is becoming more and more de rigueur. 

A shout-out to director John Rando and music director Rob Berman, as well as to everyone involved with this production.  They should all join Belle in raising a glass and singing:  Here’s to us, my darling my dear/Here’s to us tonight!

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Lost (and Found) in Yonkers

The boys greet Grandma Kurnitz.  Photo by Stephen Kunken

Nobody likes Grandma Kurnitz, and it’s not hard to figure why.  She is a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, tough and mean-spirited as they come, the steely controlling center of Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers, now in view in a first-rate revival by The Actors Company Theatre company (TACT) at Theatre Row’s Beckett Theatre

Lost in Yonkers first appeared on Broadway in 1991, five years after the final play in what is sometimes referred to as the “Eugene Triology” (Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and Broadway Bound). 

Anyone with knowledge of those earlier works will find some elements of Lost in Yonkers that seem familiar.  Like its predecessors, this is a coming-of-age story, featuring, in this instance, not one but two precocious teenage boys.  And, as you might expect, it also includes lots of clever Simonesque wisecracks. 

What makes Lost in Yonkers a richer work is the sense that you are being given an inside look at a very real and troubled family, with enough unpredictable turns to keep it from becoming yet another Simon saga of a World War II-era family, an affectionate but not quite believable sugared memoir that covers up the scary parts. 

Lost in Yonkers begins with a visit to Grandma Kurnitz (Cynthia Harris, co-artistic director of TACT) by her anxious widowed son Eddie (Dominic Comperatore), with his boys, Jay (Matthew Gummley) and Arty (Russell Posner), in tow.  Eddie has had little to do with his mother for many years, and she has seen her grandsons—now 15 and 13—only a handful of times. Nevertheless, Eddie has come crawling back to the family home in order to beg his mother to let the boys stay with her for the better part of a year.  He needs to go away to earn the money to pay back the loan shark who had covered his wife’s final medical expenses, and he has nowhere else to turn.

With this setup, It does seem that we can expect the inevitable march toward a happy family ending, in which the boys and their grandmother learn to appreciate one another.  But Simon either abandoned that path or intended another one all along.  For while Jay and Arty are still significant players, they become observers and commentators, while the meat of the play examines Grandma Kurnitz and the still-festering wounds she has caused to her now-grown children. In addition to Eddie, we spend time with his sisters Bella (Finnerty Steeves) and Gert (Stephanie Cozart), and their brother Louie (Alec Beard)—all of whom have spent their lives living in fear of their mother’s icy hold over them and all of whom have been damaged in different ways.

When one character says of Grandma Kurnitz, who owns and runs a candy story beneath her immaculately ordered apartment, that “she’d know if salt was missing from a pretzel,” you are invited to laugh, as long as it is out of her hearing, because you understand that it is absolutely true. 

At the early preview I saw, the entire cast was already uniformly strong and functioning as a tight-knit ensemble. Special kudos should go to Ms. Steeves as the emotionally stifled and developmentally-delayed Bella, reminiscent of Laura Wingfield in that other well-known memory play, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. 

Under the excellent direction of Jenn Thompson, and aided in no small part by the perfect scenic design by John McDermott, Lost in Yonkers even allows for a little sympathy towards Grandma Kurnitz, as we gain some insights into the cause of her own bitter toughness.  There is a moment towards the end in which she shows the audience (though not her family) a momentary glimpse of happiness that is both startling and revelatory.

Lost in Yonkers is a bit messy as the center of attention moves from character to character like a hot potato being tossed around, yet the place where it ultimately lands is most satisfying and appropriate. In the end, it doesn’t much matter whether this is a reflection of Simon’s actual recollections or purely a work of imagination.  There is a ring of truth that undoubtedly contributed to the original production’s walking away with a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Tony Awards and that makes this revival a rich and valuable theatrical experience.

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