Generation to Generation
Lost in Yonkers is a play about how families can be very different from one generation to the next, yet also maintain continuity. As stated in the play, Grandma Kurnitz is like "steel." She doesn't allow the pain of her past to deter her from living, and she doesn't give in to depression or unwieldy emotions, and it is because of this "steel" that her children all turn out vastly different from her. Her children blame her for not showing more of her emotions and being more affectionate to them as children, but this is because she endured so many difficulties as an immigrant. The play explores the fact that in families, temperaments and attitudes change from generation to generation, and that often times members of the same family from different generations can feel like strangers to one another. This is represented most pointedly in the relationship between Grandma and her two grandsons, Arty and Jay.
The Effects of War
The play takes place during World War II, and the desperation and difficulty of life during wartime is a major theme. Grandma left Germany during the First World War and has traumatic memories of having to leave Europe and emigrate. Now, during the Second World War, the Kurnitzes are still facing difficulties, both emotional and financial. Eddie must find some way to pay back his loans from his wife's cancer treatment, and at the time the best way to make money fast was to travel around the country selling scrap metal. The war has opened up a whole market that can help Eddie repay his debts, but it is also what pulls him away from his two sons.
Endurance
Endurance is a major theme of the play, particularly as it is epitomized by Grandma. Grandma has endured the murder of her father along with the brutalization of her people in Germany. She has endured decades of hardship in order to live her life. Indeed, she is the image of endurance, in that she has had to live through so much trauma, but keep a calm face through it all. Her endurance is what gives her a sense of self, and the source of her exasperation often stems from the fact that other people are not as able to endure as she is.
However, many other characters must endure as well, even if their hardships are less severe. Arty and Jay must endure the hardship of living with their Grandma for 10 months; she is quite different from their father who teaches them with love, while she teaches them with discipline and work. Additionally, Eddie must endure the road as a traveling salesman in order to pay off his debts and get back to his children in one piece. Bella must endure a life in which her ambitions and her desire for independence exceed what she is actually capable of.
Childhood
The protagonists of the play are Arty and Jay, two young boys who must deal with some pretty adult issues—parental death, financial troubles, and dysfunctional family dynamics—at young ages. They navigate a difficult road with humor and resilience. Even though the issues they are dealing with are quite mature, they are still innocent young people. Because the two boys are the play's protagonists, the audience experiences the action of the play as if through the eyes of a child. We are aligned with them, and we experience the wonder of childhood (however complicated it may be in the Kurnitz household) and empathize with their plight as young people.
Additionally, Bella is in her own state of permanent childhood, and she must navigate the adult world through the eyes of a child. When she confronts Grandma about her condition, Grandma tells her that she is trapped in the mindset of a child, in spite of being a 35-year-old woman. Bella fights back, suggesting that she has had many adult experiences (mostly citing her sexual experience) and begging her mother to let her be more independent. Thus, we see the theme of childhood, and the division between adult responsibility and childhood innocence, represented in the character of Bella.
Love and Affection
One thing that the Kurnitz siblings feel that they were deprived of in childhood is love and affection from their mother, a stern immigrant who could not show them that she cared. In response, both Eddie and Bella have become especially affectionate and kindhearted adults, sensitive to other people's needs and kind to the children, Arty and Jay. Eddie has never gotten along with his mother very well; according to her, he is exceedingly sentimental and shows his emotions too readily.
The theme of love comes up explicitly in Bella's narrative. She meets Johnny, the usher, and immediately falls in love and wants to get married. This too is shot down by her unloving mother, who argues that Bella does not have the emotional maturity to deal with the hardships of romantic love. Yet again, she deprives her daughter of the ability to experience love in the world, when that is all that Bella wants.
Loss
When we first meet Arty and Jay, they have recently experienced the traumatic loss of their mother, a loving woman who took care of them. Before the events of the play unfold, the two boys have experienced a great loss and must deal with the fact that they no longer have the maternal support system they once did.
Other characters experience profound losses as well. Bella, when her family disapproves of her union with Johnny, becomes inconsolable and is traumatized by the loss of a relationship she thought might save her and give her a chance at a responsible life.
Finally, it is revealed that Grandma too has experienced devastating loss. She lost her home country, her family, everything that was once familiar to her, and was forced to come to America. Most importantly, she lost two of her children, which hurt her in ways that she has never been able to feel. In her fight with Bella, we learn that Grandma's stern and mean attitude is directly connected to the fact that she has lost so much. She is unable to feel exactly how much she has lost, and so has become an especially grim person.
Humor
In spite of all the dysfunction and tragedy in the Kurnitz family, humor often prevails. The characters might not be laughing, but the audience is sure to, as Arty and Jay get into various misadventures in Grandma Kurnitz's apartment. The first scene is highly comic, with the two young boys plotting ways to get out of having to live with their strict German grandmother. Arty in particular is able to turn around his experiences and make them comical. The boys joke about selling Grandma's hair to the army to use as barbed wire, they joke about the fact that someone "dropped a horse" on Grandma and she still hasn't gotten over it. In Lost in Yonkers, laughter is a medicine, a respite from the hardships of life, a way of coping with tragedy. Grandma is not afforded much humor, but the grandsons, third-generation immigrants, are able to see the humor in their circumstances more clearly.
