The overall criticism of "Lost in Yonkers" is that the characters are rich with many sides and that they provide the plot with enough complexity to make the story work well. I, on the other hand, think that there wasn't enough to the characters. I think that the story could have used a character that was a stereotype for a specific character trait.
At the beginning of this play we meet the tyrannical grandmother, product of the old world, that has been hardened by her life experiences, i.e. losing two of her children. It seems that during the entire story she never deviates from the stereotype we discover her in. I think that it would have added more complexity if the grandmother would have shown some compassion sometime. The woman was known to have money but when her son comes asking for help out of a bad situation becoming worse, she did not offer to give her son the money to help him out of his problem. Not only that, she could have been more sensitive and loaned out the money and have him work off the debt with her, on a certain timetable. But in the whole spirit of the negotiations, she wasn't even willing to watch his kids for a time so that he could earn the money on his own. This is just the beginning of the character we get to know. Other scenes that continue the generalization of grandma are ones that show her unwilling to let her grandchild stay in the house, but make them labors to supposedly make up the cost of them staying with her. She also makes them incur the costs of any "robberies", even when she knows the culprits are her family or even herself. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a grandmother that would make you pay for someone stealing from her store when it was herself that did it.
There were other characters that showed these same characteristics. Like Uncle Louie, he was always the smooth gangster that wouldn't put up with grandma's grief. Even with him it was too constant.
