‘Lost in Yonkers’ promising but pokey

Highbrow theatergoers don’t generally like works by Neil Simon. They talk about him the way the literati talk about Stephen King: He has made a lucky — and plentiful — living off of shtick.

And like King, Simon is one of the most successful writers in his field. His shtick was popularized in the plays (and movies) “Barefoot in the Park,” “The Odd Couple,” and 25 other theater works written during the last 30 years.

But I love Neil Simon. I love the Jewish humor, the one-liners, the completely predictable Simon shtick. It’s funny stuff.

Belfast Maskers director Gardner Howes knows that. Although his production of “Lost in Yonkers,” which plays through May 14, isn’t as borscht belt in spirit as Simon’s plays should be, it has a charm of its own.

Unlike most of Simon’s work in which everything starts out fine and then deteriorates as human foibles start to show, “Yonkers” begins with the trouble. Young Arty and Jay, teen brothers, learn from their father that the family is broke. All his money was spent caring for their mother, who died, and now he must go off and make money to pay off debts.

The boys are forced to stay with their commandant grandmother, an old-world German who lives in Yonkers and runs a candy store, over top of which she lives with her 35-year-old daughter, Bella. The grandmother’s personal motto is “You don’t survive in this world without being like steel.” She’s a tough lady. According to her grandsons, kissing her is like putting your lips on a wrinkled ice cube. And Arty is convinced that you could cut off her braids and sell them for barbed wire.

Clearly, this is a bleak move for the boys, and they say so. This is not a good move for Grandma Kurnitz, either, and she says so, too. But they all end up together and they stick it out — amid various family dysfunctions — for the best part of a year until the boys’ father returns.

In the months of living over Kurnitz’s Kandy Store, the boys come to know their Aunt Bella, who’s a little slow (it took her almost a year to make a dress), but is also completely loving and kind. Her particular form of simple-mindedness, it is suggested, came from being hit in the head one too many times by her mother.

Uncle Louie also seems to have suffered under his mother’s beating, though his was more of the brow-beating type. Louie, it turns out, is a mobster who only stops in at the apartment because he’s keeping a low profile. A nice enough guy if you like mobsters, Louie is his mother’s most direct heir. In everything I’ve accomplished in my life, he tells his mother with pungent sarcasm, you’re my partner.

The cast for the Belfast prodcution is generally good, although Peter Conant, as the father Eddie, is extremely slow with his delivery. Edie Palmer, as Bella, is equally slow but is often endearing with her innocent incisiveness.

Joseph Berube is slimy as Louie, and Lisa Goodridge is dutifully annoying as Aunt Gert.

Bryan Matluk, as Arty, and Joshua K. Prescott, as Jay, are terrific. And Jaci Sieben, as Grandma, is the star of the show. She is a top-notch actor and turns in a completely satisfying performance.

During moments when the action lulls (and there are way too many for a play based on quick and witty exchange), there’s always the set to delight your eyes. Designer Linden Frederick has created one of the most outstanding sets I have ever seen for this region’s stages. It is a rich combination of decorative wallpapers and colors, as well as amazing angles and depths. Even the rooms that we simply peek into, such as a bathroom, have the appearance of a fully authentic space. From the window, we can see the very top of the neon sign that lights the candy store below.

It is a testament to what community theater can accomplish, said Gardner Howes, who revealed that the entire set cost $600. The testament also holds true for the production itself. If the ensemble can only pick up the pace, then they would have a winner all the way around.

“Lost in Yonkers” will be performed 8 p.m. May 12 and 13, and 5 p.m. May 14 at the Railroad Theater in Belfast. For tickets, call 338-9668.