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October 29, 2004/Cheshvan 14 5765, Vol. 57, No. 9
AJTC gets 'Lost in Yonkers'
JENNIFER GOLDBERG
Staff Writer
In this year of celebration of the 350th anniversary of Jews in America, the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company has dedicated its 2004-05 season to the varie-ties of the Jewish theater experience.
For its opening production, AJTC has chosen "Lost in Yonkers" by Neil Simon, because "Neil Simon is the quintessential Jewish play-wright certainly of the 20th and 21st centuries," says AJTC artistic director Janet Arnold.
"Yonkers," for the unfamil-iar, is an intimate look at a World War II-era Jewish family living in New York. Grandma Kurnitz is a tough old lady who takes in her two grandsons, Arty and Jay, when their father has to take a job as a traveling salesman. The two boys move in with Grandma and their Aunt Bella, a woman whose early childhood illness has rendered her virtually a child in an adult's body.
The action of the play is a time of transition for the main characters. The boys must adjust to a new house in the wake of their mother's death, and Bella is forced to confront the changes that are taking place within her.
"She's starting to under-stand that there are things that she wants," says Maria Amorocho, who plays Bella. "She looks like a woman, and has the same needs and feelings and wants the same things that a woman should have, but she can't think like a woman, so she's feeling the unfairness of it all."
Amorocho is a woman who, while not Jewish by birth, has embraced Judaism in a number of ways throughout her lifetime.
She belonged to her local Jewish community center as a child because, as she explains, "they had a nice pool, and all our friends went there. And so I learned a lot about Jewish culture when I was young."
She later married a Jewish man, and the couple is raising their two children Jewish. Amorocho says she plans to convert before her oldest child has his bar mitzvah.
When she's not performing in AJTC productions (this is her fourth), Amorocho runs Keepsake Kippot, a home-based business that produces handmade wire-and-bead kippot for women and girls. She will be exhibiting her pieces at the Nov. 7 JCC Fine Art and Gift Show at the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center.
Arnold says the rest of the AJTC season will continue to commemorate American Jewish theater. The company's next production will be "Beau Jest" and "Jest a Second" by Jim Sherman Dec. 18-Jan. 9, 2005, followed by "The Price" by Arthur Miller Feb. 12-27, 2005, and finally, "From Berlin to Brooks," an original musical revue celebrating Jewish composers and lyricists, March 26-April 10, 2005.
"I think (the season) covers all the bases," Arnold says. "We've got Neil Simon to represent comedy; we've got Arthur Miller to represent drama; we've got Jim Sherman because we like him, but his work is also comedic; and then the musical, which encom-passes the whole range of American Jewish composers."
Details
- What: "Lost in Yonkers"
- When: Nov. 6-21
- Where: Playhouse on the Park, inside the Viad Corporate Center, 1850 N. Central Ave., Phoenix
- Cost: $26-$28
- Call: 602-264-0402
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