It is 1942. Eddie, a widower, is panic stricken when he has to persuade iron-clad Grandma Kurnitz to take in his two young sons Jay and Artie so he can travel to a new Defense job to earn money for his family. There we also meet Aunt Bella, slightly simple in the head, Uncle Louie, a small-time gangster, and Aunt Gert, so tyrannized that she forgets to stop talking whenever she breathes in. The varied characters of Lost in Yonkers exhibit various forms of survival techniques: Uncle Louie's "moxie," the boys' refuge in a mixture of one-liners and late-night forays to the candy store for ice cream, Bella's constant search for unconditional love and acceptance, and Gert, locked in the past with all it's dysfunctionalism. Grandma Kurnitz, however, is made of steel, born out of a resolve to survive and live through the pain of survival. It is precisely this conflict that brings humor to the play, as each member of the family struggles to survive old wounds from their childhood in Yonkers. At the core of it, Lost in Yonkers is a play about finding one's way through the tangled webs of familial relationships and attempting to survive life without losing the sense of self.