Neil Simon - Themes and Genres

Themes and Genres

Theater critic John Lahr describes Simon’s primary theme as being about “the silent majority,” many of whom are “frustrated, edgy, and insecure.” Simon’s characters are also portrayed as “likable” and easy for audiences to identify with, often having difficult relationships in marriage, friendship or business, as they “struggle to find a sense of belonging.” McGovern notes that in his plays there is always “an implied seeking for solutions to human problems through relationships with other people,” adding that Simon “is able to deal with serious topics of universal and enduring concern,” while at the same time make people laugh.

One of Simon’s “hallmarks” is his “great compassion for his fellow human beings,” according to McGovern:

He shows a preference for conventional moral behavior; however, he has great tolerance for mortal fallibility. He suggests mutual concession in personal relationships; however, he never “punishes” those who persist in extreme modes of behavior.

Author Alan Cooper, states that Simon’s plays “are essentially about friendships, even when they are about marriage or siblings or crazy aunts..."

All of Simon’s plays except for two are set in New York, giving them an urban flavor. Within that setting, Simon’s themes, besides marital conflict, sometimes include infidelity, sibling rivalry, adolescences, bereavement, and fear of aging. And despite the serious nature of the themes, Simon has continually managed to tell the stories with humor, developing the theme to include both realism and comedy. During an interview with drama author Jackson R. Bryer in 1994 about how to write comedy, Simon said he would tell aspiring playwrights “not to try to make it funny. Tell them to try and make it real and then the comedy will come”

“When I was writing plays,” he says, “I was almost always (with some exceptions) writing a drama that was funny.... I wanted to tell a story about real people.” Simon explains how he manages this combination:

My view is “how sad and funny life is." I can’t think of a humorous situation that does not involve some pain. I used to ask, “What is a funny situation?” Now I ask, “What is a sad situation and how can I tell it humorously?”

In marriage relationships, his comedies often portray these struggles with plots of marital difficulties or fading love, sometimes leading to separation, divorce and child custody battles. Their endings would typically conclude, after many twists in the plot, to renewal of the relationships.

Politics seldom have any overt role in Simon’s stories, and his characters avoid confronting society despite their personal problems. “Simon is simply interested in showing human beings as they are—with their foibles, eccentricities, and absurdities.” Drama critic Richard Eder explains:

Simon’s popularity rests upon his fine control of a very particular kind of painful comedy. It consists of his characters saying and doing funny things in ludicrous contrast to the unhappiness they are feeling.

Simon’s plays are generally semi-autobiographical, often portraying aspects of his troubled childhood and first marriages. According to Koprince, Simon’s plays also “invariably depict the plight of white middle-class Americans, most of whom are New Yorkers and many of whom are Jewish, like himself.“ He states, “I suppose you could practically trace my life through my plays.” In plays such as Lost in Yonkers, Simon suggests the necessity of a loving marriage, opposite to that of his parents’, and when children are deprived of it in their home, “they end up emotionally damaged and lost.”

Koprince points out that “One of the most important influences on Simon is his Jewish heritage,” although he is unaware of that quality while writing. In the Brighton Beach trilogy, she explains, the lead character is a “master of self-deprecating humor, cleverly poking fun at himself and at his Jewish culture as a whole.” Simon himself has described his characters as “often self-deprecating and usually see life from the grimmest point of view.” This theme in writing, notes Koprince, “belongs to a tradition of Jewish humor....a tradition which values laughter as a defense mechanism and which sees humor as a healing, life-giving force.”