Neil Simon

an appreciation

Neil Simon was by far the most successful American playwright. Has any other writer ever got as many Broadway shows or made as much money? In the playwright world, he has ouchy defenders who feel embattled when critics express doubts he was truly a great writer. His reputation in that regard is similar to popular novelists like Stephen King or J. K. Rowling. “Fun stuff, appetizing fodder for the masses, but is it art?” A lot of his plays were made into popular movies. I am one of those people who prefer the movie versions with their star-studded casts to the stage versions. His most famous play is The Odd Couple; the movie is hilarious, especially the scenes with Matthau and Jack Lemmon. The ending with the women from upstairs seems tacked on, but the rest of it works like crazy. The TV show version with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman ran for years.

Simon came out of TV comedy, he wrote for Syd Caesar, and many of his plays seem like the pilot episodes of TV sitcoms. One can see the vaudeville influence. Actors love his plays the way they love Shakespeare’s because his plays provide them with steady work. Community theatre groups love his plays because of their guaranteed audience-appeal. Even Simon complained about the horrible things community theatres did to his scripts, but even those complaints show how popular they were.

Simon became a comedy brand name. Audiences arrived expecting to laugh. Audiences knew his plays would rarely challenge them, never contain profanity, never involve scenes so hip the hicks would be confused. He wrote plays that even people who hate theatre love. What that means is that while lots of people can be convinced to go to the theatre occasionally if it is to see a musical or comedy, they hate going to see dramas designed to irritate and provoke them. They don’t want to think about painful topics; they want to relax and enjoy themselves, escape the stress and worries of their life. That is what Simon provided, pleasant evenings full of laughter, great one-liners, amusing and recognizable characters dealing with hilarious predicaments.

In the last phase of his long career, he wrote autobiographical plays that mix comedy and drama like Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues. A lot of his earlier plays like Barefoot in the Park have dated a bit, but they continue to be produced. The world never stopped loving Neil Simon, and he never stopped writing until the very end when he was overwhelmed by old age. A life well spent.

Thank you, Mr. Simon.