As word association goes, if I said “Neil Simon,” chances are you would respond “comedy.” After all, there has been no more commercially successful purveyor of comedies in American history. Yet some of his best plays came in the latter half of his career when Simon learned to hold back on punch lines and wade into deeper, more heartfelt, dramatic waters. … [Read more...]
‘Plaza Suite’ doesn’t age well, but lead performances save Maltz production
The three one-act playlets of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite have two things in common. They all take place in Suite 719 of New York’s swank Plaza Hotel and they all have a jaundiced view of marriage. OK, two more things. They each run a little too long for their own good and they each feel a little outdated in 2024. Plaza Suite hails from 1968, the fourth play by … [Read more...]
Simon’s ‘Plaza Suite’ not just for laughs, Maltz director says
You might think when the Maltz Jupiter Theatre takes a break from its usual musical menu to produce a comedy like Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite that the task is easier. Not so, says director J. Barry Lewis, the Maltz’s go-to guy when it comes to staging Simon’s plays. “They’re always a challenge, there’s no doubt about it,” he says. “It’s one of the oldest sayings in the … [Read more...]
DB Playhouse shows Simon’s ‘Plaza Suite’ still has plenty of life in it
By Dale King Anyone who thinks Neil Simon’s vast body of theatrical writing just doesn’t cut it anymore or doesn’t pack the same oomph it once did must see Plaza Suite — the final production of the season at the Delray Beach Playhouse. It will most definitely change their minds. DBP has chosen one of Simon’s most enduring, albeit a shade dated, comic presentations to wrap … [Read more...]
Female ‘Odd Couple’ falls flat at Boca Stage
In his heyday, Neil Simon would write a new play each season. In 1985, however, when he didn’t have a good idea for a play, he rewrote one of his finest, funniest comedies, The Odd Couple, changing the gender of the characters and tinkering with many of his previously well-crafted laugh lines. While he never asked me for my opinion, I would have advised him with that … [Read more...]
FAU’s student cast ably takes on Simon’s ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’
By Dale King Summer has arrived, and while most college students have gone home for a school break or to earn tuition money for the coming year, Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Theater and Dance has kicked off its annual Summer Repertory two-show festival. The first entry is a play that concludes this week. The second is a musical scheduled to open in … [Read more...]
Gardner helps lift Simon’s minor ‘Gingerbread Lady’ at Primal Forces
Nine years after he made his Broadway debut with the wisecracking Come Blow Your Horn, long after he was proclaimed the commercial theater’s reigning king of comedy, Neil Simon made a drastic tonal shift with the darkly dramatic The Gingerbread Lady. This tale of an alcoholic nymphomaniac and her emotionally needy friends did have glimmers of the serious Simon of his later … [Read more...]
Appreciation: The enduring wit of Neil Simon
The first time I met and interviewed Neil Simon he was not in any mood to be funny. It was January 1991, in Washington, D.C., where he was for the out-of-town premiere of Lost in Yonkers, a dark comedy about two brothers forced to live with their crotchety grandmother while their salesman father went on the road to make a living. The play went on to great acclaim … [Read more...]
Broward Stage Door’s ‘Sunshine Boys’ a late-summer gem
By Dale King Broward Stage Door Theater has plucked a gem from the Neil Simon vault – the playwright’s paean to vaudeville, The Sunshine Boys – and presents it like a shiny, late-summer gift to welcoming audiences at the Margate performance venue. Director Michael Leeds, who has helmed an arm’s length list of shows at the theater on Sample Road, taps a couple of veteran … [Read more...]
Community theater: ‘Odd Couple’ still works at Delray Playhouse
By Dale King Just Google “The Odd Couple” and you’ll find that Neil Simon’s 1965 comedy is still being produced for television. It’s the seventh screen incarnation for Simon’s 52-year-old Broadway baby, an assemblage that includes a 1968 movie, a cartoon adaption and a reunion film — not to mention a female-version stage play. The current CBS sitcom stars Matthew Perry … [Read more...]