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Neil Simon, one of America’s most prolific and famous playwrights, deals with a range of human eccentricities and mannerisms
Neil Simon has been one
of the most famous playwrights of our times because of his incisive
style and the infinite variety of subjects dealing with the prevalent
society and a whole range of human foibles. "To be sensitive is
to feel pain every day," is his well-known line. His plays like
"Barefoot in the Park" (Robert Redford and Jane
Fonda) and "The Odd Couple" (Jack Lemmon and Walter
Matthau) were made into films and he soon became an instant success.
He also wrote "Come Blow Your Horn", a hilarious
movie that gave the word bum recognition after Lee J. Cobb used it to
describe his son Frank Sinatra. And was he prolific? Writing 29 plays
in 34 years answers that. In his biography Neil Simon Rewrites,
there is a wealth of anecdotes. Many funny, some touching but all
absorbing as he charts his career until his wife Joan dies of cancer.
That he later married actress Marsha Mason is, however, academic. At
one time, he came out with a play each year so much so that his
earlier agent Saint Suber asked him "you haven’t started next
year’s play yet?" to which Simon said "what am I a writing
machine. Is my life all about turning out plays for you….I am not a
f..king xerox machine." Neil Simon was one of the few successful
artistes who also had a happy married life. Very close to his wife and
two girls, Ellen and Nancy, they travelled a lot together, spent
holidays abroad and also had a pretty active social life, among other
things being invited to Australian John Newcombe’s camp/ranch in San
Antonio where he and Joan shared the court with former tennis heroes
like Tony Roche, Rod Laver, Pancho Gonzales, Roy Emerson and Ken
Rosewell. Simon was good friends with Hollywood icon Mike Nichols of The
Graduate fame and worked together on many plays, doing rewrites in
hotel lobbies too. Musical director Bob Fosse (Cabaret) was another
who along with his wife Gwen Verdon made a formidable pair. How,
sitting in the back rows of the rehearsal, he judged what could work
and what did not and he sums up all this in the succinct lines
"the brilliant is born out of a writer’s pain, some divine
inspiration and a slight bit of madness." Simon also mentions an
incident that took place during the staging of Plaza Suite where they
agreed to make a crack in the ceiling. Nichols wanted to show the
deterioration that’s setting in New York. "The crack is a
metaphor for the slow-coming-apart-at-the-seams of our world
today." Simon is generous in his praise of the many talented
artistes he has worked with, an example is this is his tribute to Jack
Lemmon whom he calls "a director’s dream and writers succor and
a gift to audiences from a Haward man who decided to be an
actor." After his initial forays into comedy, Simon shifted
gears to something more serious and reflecting human pain. This is
what critic Clive Barnes says about Prisoner of Second Avenue. "Now
his humour has a sad air to it… it is all the more deliciously funny
for that undercurrent of discontent. It is, I think, the most honestly
amusing comedy that Mr Simon has given us so far." But his wife’s
cancer took a great toll on his life and it was during these days that
he relied a great deal on two close friends, his new producer Manny
Azenberg and insurance agent Michael Brockman. In early years, he
started writing with his elder brother Danny, his mentor, till he left
for Los Angeles. His dad Irving was in and out of the marriage but
Simon held him close to his heart. Especially touching is the scene
when they meet on their favourite Park bench and he asks Simon for a
loan. Equally touching is his dad’s reaction to his first play Come
Blow Your Horn. Of the play he says, "It was very nice… the
audience liked it a lot. Did you write all of it or the actors wrote
some."
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