Summary
At 6:30 PM on an August night, we meet Arty and Jay, brothers who are at their grandmother's apartment in Yonkers, New York. The year is 1942. They complain about how they are afraid of their grandmother and how it is very hot. Jay, the older brother, talks about their grandmother's cane and limp and remembers that he drew a picture of her when he was young and labeled it "Frankenstein's Grandma." As the boys talk, we learn that the grandmother is a cold woman, and that their mother passed away. The boys talk about the fact that their mother once said that everyone on their father's side of the family has something wrong with them.
Jay tells Arty that their grandmother used to hit their Aunt Bella when she was young, which made her stupid, but that she worked making ice cream sodas for a time.
Their father, Eddie Kurnitz, emerges from the bedroom where he has been talking to their grandmother. He tells Arty, who is lying on the floor, to get up so he doesn't crease his pants.
When Eddie goes back into the bedroom, the boys talk about their Aunt Gert, who has problems with her lungs, and Jay does an impression that makes Arty laugh. They talk about the fact that Grandma didn't let her kids cry when they were little, and about their Uncle Louie, who's a gangster and apparently delivers money to the mob.
Suddenly, Arty sees Aunt Bella on the street outside, lost, and yells down to her to tell her that they're upstairs. Eddie comes out and scolds the boys for yelling, tells them not to have an ice cream soda, and to tell Bella that Grandma Kurnitz needs a back rub.
Aunt Bella enters, sweet and in a state of arrested development. She greets the boys warmly and they tell her that Grandma wants a back rub. She tells them she's 35 and they tell her their ages, 13 and 15. Bella tells them she got lost and went to the wrong movie theater and ended up seeing a movie with Bette Davis and George Brent. When she invites them to a movie the next week they tell her they are going to a Yankees game. She then offers to go make them ice cream sodas at the candy store downstairs, but they tell her that they aren't supposed to have one.
Confused, Bella asks the boys where their mother is, and they remind her that she died. Remembering their mother, Bella says that she didn't get along with Grandma very well, and that no one has. "My sister, Gert, was once engaged to a man. She brought him over to meet Grandma. The next day he moved to Boston," she says.
Bella goes on a tangent, talking about the fact that it's good to have a big family when things go wrong, and remembering her brothers and sisters who died young, and her father who died before she was born. When she offers them ice cream yet again, they refuse, and Bella throws a tantrum, calling them disrespectful and going into the bathroom with a loud slam of the door.
Eddie comes out, having heard the slammed door, and the boys ask if they can leave. "You haven't even seen your grandmother. Stop rushing me. You just got here, didn't you?" Eddie says, frustrated, before going to talk to Bella. She doesn't answer when he calls to her and he goes back into the bedroom with Grandma.
When Eddie has gone back into the bedroom, Bella comes out holding a towel and some oil. They tell her that Grandma needs her and she tells them that Grandma hates her dress, which she made herself and which took a year to sew. After telling the boys she's going to cook them dinner, Bella goes into Grandma's room.
Eddie comes out and asks Jay to get him a glass of water. He wants to talk to the boys about something and begins to cry. As the boys listen, Eddie recalls that he kept their mother's cancer a secret for a year so as not to worry the boys, and that he paid extra so she would have a nice experience at the hospital. Getting emotional, Eddie tells his sons that he spent everything he had to keep their mother in the hospital, and that he went into debt. He details that he took money from a loanshark, in spite of his longstanding advice to the boys to never take anything from anybody, "because you'll always be obligated."
Eddie tells the boys that he owes the loanshark in New York City $9000 and that the man wants it that year, but that he doesn't have the money. He then tells the boys that he loves America because it took in the Jews and the Italians and the Irish, and that as a result of the war, he can now get a job that he wouldn't normally be able to get. The job is selling scrap iron, and he will be able to make $9000 in less than a year, but he will have to travel, and in the meantime, he needs to find a place for the boys to live.
Analysis
The play begins immediately on a comedic note with the banter between the two brothers. Part of what makes their dialogue so funny is the fact that they are immediately very honest with one another about peculiar family dynamics. They discuss the fact that their grandmother is a mean woman and that their mother spoke ill about her in-laws in frank ways. Their dialogue highlights their innocence in humorous ways, and sets the stage for what is to come.
What is notable about the humor is the fact that it comes to life in talking about very serious topics. The conversation between Arty and Jay that starts the play is funny precisely because it is two young men talking about topics which are more serious than they have the language to talk about. They talk about the fact that their grandmother hit their aunt, which made her stupider, but they talk about it with a kind of glib matter-of-fact-ness that highlights their youth and misrecognition of adult problems.
We learn a great deal about the Kurnitz family from the two boys, Arty and Jay, before any of the actual characters have been introduced. They talk about their aunts and uncles and grandma in frightened and mythologizing ways, which builds suspense around the actual entrances of these characters. In this way, we are aligned with the younger characters, as they are our first reference points for better understanding the Kurnitz family.
The first adult character to enter and have a substantial scene in the play is hardly an adult at all. Bella is sweet and genuine, but her mind is arrested and unreliable, and she struggles to remember simple details of life, such as where her mother lives or whether her sister-in-law is alive. In the scene between her and the two boys, there is a kind of generational role reversal, with Arty and Jay leading her through the conversation, and her experiencing giant lapses in awareness. It ends with her throwing an unusual tantrum, offended by the boys' refusal to accept an ice cream sundae, and the boys are left in a state of bewilderment at the erratic and childlike behavior of their elder.
When we learn more about Eddie Kurnitz, we see that he too is experiencing his own kind of arrested development. He tells his sons about how he lost all of their money caring for their mother when she had cancer, but that he now has a plan to pay back his debts by selling scrap iron. While Eddie is a seemingly good and honest man, his lack of foresight and ability to care for his children in the wake of their mother's death belies his own kind of carelessness. Thus, we see that Arty and Jay are forced into a kind of responsibility and adulthood before they are quite ready, pushed to support their father as he gets out of his own mess.
