Neil Simon by Robert K. JohnsonReview by: Frances PettinelliTheatre Journal, Vol. 37, No. 2 (May, 1985), pp. 262-263Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3207103 .

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262 / TI, May 1985

plays. Finally, she argues, the popularity of boy companies and the subsequent occupation of private theatres by adult companies encouraged the pro- liferation of masques within plays.

There is an air of randomness about this choice of elements. All three are included because no self- respecting study of the masque in Jacobean tragedy can overlook them. But with the possible exception of the use of Kyd's play, Sutherland proposes no methodological connection, no model for the rela- tionship between these elements and the analyses that follow. This is regrettable, as Sutherland is in fact at her most interesting when drawing upon her familiarity with the court masque, suggesting, for example, a link between Jonson's Masque of Beauty and The Maid's Tragedy, or attempting to visualize the inserted masque as part of the play in perform- ance. Her reconstruction of the masques, especially those in Antonio's Revenge, The Revenger's Tragedy, and The Changeling, is cautious but detailed and splendidly illuminating.

On the whole, Masques in Jacobean Tragedy is a modest book, and as such is difficult to fault. In its restraint, however, it shies away from some interest- ing questions implicit in the discussion. For example, in dealing with the revels of revenge in The Duchess of Malfi, in which the spectator of a masque becomes its victim, Sutherland underscores the obvi- ous point that the audience perceives the discrep- ancy between the revenging character's purpose and the playwright's, but ignores the implications of art as aggression, or of art that requires the participa- tion of the spectator for its completion. Sutherland is committed to the individuality of each play and its inserted masque(s). It is therefore by design that she avoids the overview one looks for in such a study, and in this she accomplishes her task.

LEANORE LIEBLEIN McGill Universityl

NEIL SIMON. By Robert K. Johnson. (Twayne's United States Authors Series, No. 447). Boston: G. K. Hall, 1983; pp. 154. $15.95.

Neil Simon is not only one of our most prolific but also one of our most popular comic writers. Indeed, his vast output of stage offerings and screenplays has

virtually made his name a household word. Yet despite his widespread popularity, few critical studies of his writings have been published. This absence of criticism leads one to question whether Simon's work can justify the serious critical atten- tion Robert K. Johnson attempts to give it in this book.

Born in New York City in 1927, Simon began at twenty-one to write comic material for a host of nightclub, radio, and television performers, before embarking on his dual career in theatre and film thir- teen years later. Johnson starts with a very brief look at Simon's early life, then goes on to examine in detail Simon's writings over a twenty-year period, from 1961 to 1981. The 35 works authored by Simon during those two decades include fifteen stage plays, four musical comedies, five original screenplays, and eleven screenplays adapted from other sources, primarily Simon's own plays. Unfortunately, the book does not include Simon's most recent play, Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983), which many con- sider his best writing.

For each work, Johnson first summarizes the plot, then analyzes the text mainly in terms of characteri- zation, motivation, and situation, with occasional references to plot structure. Finally, he compares each work to one or more of the others. However, this method creates a great deal of repetition. More importantly, it offers insufficient criteria for judging the relative merits of Simon's writings, and some of Johnson's later statements contradict, or at best raise questions about, earlier ones. For example, he pejo- ratively describes Simon's earliest plays - Come Blow Your Horn (1961) and Barefoot in the Park (1963) -as "souffle comedies," but he then calls Barefoot in the Park "an outstanding domestic com- edy" (p. 139). He also describes the play Chapter Two (1977) as "one of Simon's finest achievements" because the main characters "have to struggle des- perately to bring about a happy ending" (pp. 108-9). Yet at times such an ending is inappropriate, he later adds.

In his discussion of the musical comedies, Johnson correctly asserts that Little Me (1962) and Sweet Charity (1966), the latter based on Federico Fellini's film Nights of Cabiria, were meager literary efforts despite their long Broadway runs. However, he con- siders Promises, Promises (1968), adapted from Billy Wilder's screenplay for The Apartment. to be Simon's best musical book because the characters are more complex and less stereotypical and the happy ending evolves plausibly out of the characters' inter- actions. Nevertheless, even this book is flawed,

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263 / BOOK REVIEW

Johnson goes on to say, in that the conflict does not emerge until Scene Six (p. 31).

Johnson finds Simon's screenplays to be the least successful of his writings. Indeed, he comments, many of the film adaptations were only "satisfac- tory," and some were "pedestrian" (p. 137). How- ever, he singles out The Heartbreak Kid, a 1972 movie based on Bruce Jay Friedman's short story "A Change of Plan," as Simon's best filmscript. It "builds to an absorbing climax and intriguing denouement," he writes, and "the main characters are vividly individualized, yet become meaningful and memorable archetypes" (p. 138). This is one of few instances in the book where plot and characteri- zation are discussed in literary terms.

The final chapter in this twelve-chapter study catalogs Simon's overall strengths and weaknesses in both theatre and film. Johnson lauds the stage plays as Simon's best work, mainly because they present a variety of characters, but he fails to recognize that all of Simon's characters are middle class and most of them have similar values and attitudes. Then, too, Johnson identifies Simon's outlook on life as one of "working with society," but the examples he cites are of characters who cannot break free of rigid social conventions, even when those conventions are injurious to them.

Furthermore, the reader is frequently jarred by the use of colloquialisms (unquoted) such as "guy," "creamed," "nutty as a fruitcake," "wacky," and "zonked out," as well as by occasional lapses in grammar, and it is not clear why some chapters are devoted exclusively to one work while others com- bine several. In addition, the chronological format causes some confusion and far too much repetition in that many works are discussed in more than one chapter - as plays, musicals, or films. It would have been preferable to follow one work through its several genres before going on to the next.

This format also precludes examination of Simon the playwright in relation to the theatrical condi- tions of his day. That is, although he considers Simon one of America's finest comic writers, Johnson never attempts either to explain Simon's appeal or to evaluate Simon's plays in terms of what they may have contributed to American dramatic literature.

FRANCES PETTINELLI Graduate School of CUNY

BOOKS RECEIVED

Listing does not preclude subsequent review. Books received through 1 December 1984 are listed. Inter- ested reviewers should write directly to the Book Review Editor, indicating areas of expertise and including a resume.

ACTING AND DIRECTING

Ball, William. A Sense of Direction; Some Obser- vations on the Art of Directing. New York: Drama Book Publishers, 1984; pp. xiv + 182. $17.95 cloth, $12.95 paper.

Benedetti, Robert L. The Director at Work. Engle- wood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1985; pp. xiv + 240. $18.95.

Chekhov, Michael. To the Director and Playwright, ed. by Charles Leonard. New York: Proscenium Publishers (Limelight Editions), 1983; pp. vii + 329. $9.95 paper.

Kirk, John W. and Ralph A. Bellas. The Art of Directing. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1985; pp. xiii + 240. No price given.

Moore, Sonia. The Stanislavski System; The Profes- sional Training of an Actor, Second Revised Edi- tion. New York: Penguin Books, 1984; pp. xvi + 96. $4.95 paper.

Ogden, Dunbar H. Actor Training and Audience Response; An Evaluation of Performance Tech- niques Taught at Berkeley by Shireen Strooker from the Amsterdam Werktheater. Fresno, Cali- fornia: The Oak House, 1984; pp. 141. No price given.

Ross, Lillian and Hellen Ross. The Player; A Profile of an Art. New York: Proscenium Publishers (Limelight Editions), 1984; pp. 459. $10.95 paper.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND BIOGRAPHY

Courtney, Marguerite. Laurette; The Intimate Biog- raphy of Laurette Taylor. New York: Proscenium Publishers (Limelight Editions), 1984; pp. ix + 445. $9.95 paper.

Kamin, Dan. Charlie Chaplin's One-Man Show. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1984; pp. xvii + 174. $29.50.

Vishnevskaya, Galina. Galina; A Russian Story, trans. by Guy Daniels. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984; pp. xiii + 519. $19.95.

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