Lower East Side 1930. A young man finds his voice. A desperate mother finds her strength. A solitary old man learns to open his heart.
LILLIAN YURALIA
Finalist at Humana Festival; winner of 2001 Berilla Kerr Grant
WRITTEN BY BARBARA EDA-YOUNG
DIRECTED BY AUSTIN PENDLETON
From the 11/19/08 New York Times review:
HEALING HEARTS: ONE CROTCHETY, TWO CONFUSED
By ANITA GATES
“Lillian Yuralia” could have gone so wrong.
A fragile woman and her teenage son are being forced out of their longtime home on the Lower East Side after the death of the boy’s father. They’ve been cut off financially because Lillian (Barbara Eda-Young, who is also the playwright) and the man never married. The boy, Yidl (John Magaro), isn’t speaking to her because he has just learned this shattering news — living in sin being less open in 1930 than now
As mother and son prepare to leave and take a bus to Pennsylvania, where they’ll live with her relatives, Lillian collapses, possibly because she added an overdose of laudanum to her afternoon tea . . .
(Link here to read full review:)
Lighting Design: Alexander Bartenieff
Costume Design: Catherine Siracusa & Sid Levitt
Sound design: Barry McBrien
Stage manager: Livia Tabor Hill
Press representative: Jonathan Slaff
*member Actors Equity Association
November 13-30, 2008
LaMama, 74A East Fourth Street
Thursday-Saturday, 8pm
Sunday, 2:30 and 8pm
$18 tdf/v
Reservations:
212-475-7710; www.lamama.org
(Austin Pendleton’s playwriting work is included in the Applause books One on One: The Best Men’s Monologues for the 21st Century and the upcoming Duo!: The Best Monologues for Two for the 21st Century.)