Customer Reviews

The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Volume 1: The Odd Couple; Plaza Suite; Barefoot in the Park; Come Blow Your Horn; The Star-Spangled Girl; Last of the Red Hot Lovers; Promises, Promises

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After watching Neil Simon's biography on TV, I decided to read some of his plays. A friend had read this book, and loaned it to me, when I was needing some Neil Simon. I read "Come Blow your Horn" and after that, I don't know if I stopped giggling, or laughing once. When reading a play, sometimes it seems dead in the script, Neil Simon plays are just as extraordinary on paper as on the stage, or in a movie. I was picturing the "Odd Couple" arguing and I started to laugh out loud (I later saw the movie and discovered that Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon perfectly fit the pictures in my mind." I then moved on to "Star Spangled Girl" which had me roaring with laughter, followed by "Barefoot in the Park" which I really loved. It was so sweet, and innocent, yet hysterically funny! Then, I went to a Plaza Suite, where a series of Affairs and arguments take place. On to "Promises, Promises" A play that was funny, and sweet. Finally, I finished this wonderful book with the poignant, and amusing play "The Last of Red Hot Lovers". Now, I am on to the next set of Neil Simon plays, but these six, will always be some of my personal favorites of all time.

I laughed out loud, and I smiled and laughed out loud some more. But these plays are more than funny, they are engaging, many, but not all, of the characters are rich. And in this volumne you get to see Simon grow as a writer.

I have just recently become involved in a community theater group. "The Odd Couple" is the first play on the schedule. I ordered this collection, which includes this play to familiarize myself with the script. It will definitely become a permanent reference for me as I enjoy my new interest! I highly recommend it.
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Anyone who expects profound one-liners, clever dialogue, and deep philosophical insights from a Neil Simon play might come away feeling a bit cheated. On the other hand. an evening that offers some laughs, encounters with stereo typical suburbanites, and mildly surprising plot twists, is not to be dismissed lightly. The introduction to this compilation of seven Simon plays is by the author himself,and titled, "Portrait of the writer as a Schizophrenic." This identifies the creator of these works as an observer of the human condition who notices the ordinary more readily than the unusual. His characters are "stuffed shirt" lawyers, over anxious mothers, slovenly sports writers, and stressed businessmen, each of whom the author has presumably met somewhere. They are engaging, amusing, and humorous. But do they reveal the rest of us to ourselves?

I am not sure. The twists of plot are fairly predictable and the unraveling of character is equally so. All Simon's plays are entertaining, but perhaps that is his gift, providing the public with a relaxing evening of laughter and amusement, not a battle with conscience or a summons to social justice. Not that I am ready to dismiss Simon as a shallow writer. He's not that, exactly. But neither is he an Ibsen tearing beneath the shallow surface of existence to discover previously undisclosed truths. So we may come to the end of almost any of his plays satisfied, but unchallenged, relaxed but not profoundly stimulated.

Is there a place for this type of drama? Of course there is, but does it come close to being a waste of talent? Perhaps so,in some ways. But if that's case, there's no doubt that Simon has brought delight to many an audience.

Neil Simon was the toast of Broadway in the late 1960s, and the plays contained in "The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Vol. 1" are what put him there.

They read unevenly today, in ways good and bad a litmus test as to what constituted mass-market humor back then versus now. Simon in his first decade was more motivated to be purely funny than he ever would be again, and his gift for the killer one-liner is in constant evidence from the first play here ("Come Blow Your Horn," 1961) to the last ("Last Of The Red-Hot Lovers," 1970). So too though are his problems with believable characterization and scenarios, skills he shored up later in his career.

Reading Simon, as opposed to seeing his work performed on stage, loses something anyway. The playwright always had a sense for rhythm and timing, and wrote his lines with the delivery of a professional comedic actor or actress in mind. It's no challenge reading the part of the father in "Come Blow Your Horn" and getting the humor of this put-upon whiner, however lacking in inflection your inner-reading voice may be. More challenging is finding the laughs in the tortured Barney character in "Red-Hot," who might seem bathetic without someone like James Coco at the controls.

Even with that caveat, Simon comes across less steady in other ways. Especially in this, his first decade, he was aiming for the laugh above all, sometimes with an elephant gun, making it messy when he missed. "The Star-Spangled Girl," Simon's 1967 take on the Bay Area counter-culture, is about as tone-deaf as he gets, as lovestruck boy pursues girl with lines like "Please lower your voice. I'm trying to hear your hair growing."

Even Simon later called that play a misfire. But his style in 1964's "Barefoot In The Park" is no better. A clean-cut guy tries to make do with a newlywed nut of a wife, who even her own mother is wary of. Wise telephone men, kooky neighbors, every Simon trope is here, everything but a reason why the couple found each other in the first place, or why we should care as much as Simon does if they stay together.

The two best-known plays here are probably "The Odd Couple" (1966) and "Plaza Suite" (1969), and along with "Promises, Promises" (1968), a clever, sure-footed musical adaptation of the classic movie comedy "The Apartment," represent Simon's best moments here. All make for good if not great reads.

"The Odd Couple" features another mismatched couple (fussy but responsible Felix Ungar and his irresponsible slob of a roommate, Oscar Madison). They don't gel nearly as well as they did in the Simon-penned movie, but they do furnish a lot of laughs, page for page the most in the book.

"Plaza Suite" starts slow and heavy, introducing a miserable lout and his long-suffering wife, before moving on to a pair of far better vignettes, all set in the same Manhattan hotel room. Most everyone enjoys the last of the three, an immersive display of Simon's winning domestic comedy style, but the middle tale, of a jaded Hollywood producer and a starstruck woman who knew him when, is a witty yet sad examination of a pair of decent people who each see something more in the other than is actually there.

The best play for reading here, "Promises, Promises," was the only one not made into a movie, because it started out as one. It's tempting to say that being given a pre-existing story helped Simon bridge one of his glaring weaknesses, but he does a nice job updating the Billy Wilder film while setting up such Bacharach/David songs as "I'll Never Fall In Love Again." It's the only play here to use more than one set, and feels far less static for that.

If you are a Simon fan, you will enjoy reading these plays, but not nearly as much as seeing them. Others may find it slower going, a comedic time capsule with a musty odor.

Neil Simon is one of America's foremost playwrights. His "The Odd Couple" is very memorable as is his play " Only When I Laugh" which tells the poignant story of a rehabed alcoholic actress trying to get back to work, her struggle to pick up a relationship with her teenage daughter and the close bond she shares with an ageing beauty queen friend and a mostly out-of-work gay actor. Do yourself a favour and rent the video starring Marsha Mason (Simon's ex-wife) The scene where Mason's life is falling apart around her and she takes that first swill of the wine glass is worthy, every bit worthy, of her Oscar nomination in this role. Simon punches absolutely brilliant one liners and is a master of the theatre in his telling of relationships, past, present and re-establishing. Other plays include "California Suite"

"The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Vol. 1" is a nice anthology, but it's not full of his best works. I loved Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" (his two sequels weren't as good), so I have very high expectations for his plays. Here's a brief review for each play:

"The Odd Couple" - I went into this play knowing I wouldn't really like it, since I didn't care for the movie or television show. I found it too neurotic.

"Plaza Suite" - This was a very depressing play. Affairs outside the marriage is such a common theme in Simon's plays, and it's becoming sickening.

"Barefoot in the Park" - The best play in this whole volume. Witty and sensual. The movie is just as superb.

"Come Blow Your Horn" - The mother in this play is hysterical, and she's what saves the play from boredom.

"The Star-Spangled Girl" - By far the stupidest play I've ever read.

"Last of the Red Hot Lovers" - Simon tried too hard to be funny. You can tell when he wants you to laugh, and I don't like that.

"Promises, Promises" - He should stay away from musicals! Boring and petty.

Overall, this volume was a letdown, but one to have - nonetheless - if you're a Neil Simon fan. I "sorta" recommend.