Customer Reviews

The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Vol. 2

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4 star:		(1)
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This lovely volume of eight Neil Simon plays will assume an immediate place of honour on your bookshelf. Well laid out with easy-to-read type, it takes up where volume 1 leaves off. Even those folks not connected with the world of acting can have fun with these scripts. Reading/acting the plays aloud with your family, each person assigned a different role, can be a great activity for quality time -and will hone your comedy timing. Special nuggets include 'Prisoner of second avenue' and 'Chapter Two'. Reading Simon's work reveals greater depth beneath the priceless one-liners that he supplies. That, in fact, is his genius; like Woody Allen and Joseph Heller, Simon first draws you in with laughter only to move you with great humanity. These plays are among his deeper works, as life-experience go into the mix. The stories on these pages are our own, and youll have a ball!

It is nice to have so many of Mr. Simon's plays in one collection (four or five collections ultimately). I bought this one for the musical "Little Me". The book has a rather depressing, self-depreciating introduction by Mr. Simon and then gets to the plays (I won't list them here). They are easy-reading, contain many stage directions that help the reader picture what is happening on stage, and intelligently written. My one gripe is that there are no credits at the beginning of each one - cast lists, opening date and what theater, how many performances, etc.
This is a good one for studying excellent play structure, character development and motivation, and how to build upon jokes and lines spoken as far back as a previous scene. Well worth the money.

Most Neil Simon plays are wonderful and I enjoyed reading them. Some of them were no so terriffic.