The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Volume 1: The Odd Couple; Plaza Suite; Barefoot in the Park; Come Blow Your Horn; The Star-Spangled Girl; Last of the Red Hot Lovers; Promises, Promises

Anyone who expects profound one-liners, clever dialogue, and deep philosophical insights from a Neil Simon play might come away feeling a bit cheated. On the other hand. an evening that offers some laughs, encounters with stereo typical suburbanites, and mildly surprising plot twists, is not to be dismissed lightly. The introduction to this compilation of seven Simon plays is by the author himself,and titled, "Portrait of the writer as a Schizophrenic." This identifies the creator of these works as an observer of the human condition who notices the ordinary more readily than the unusual. His characters are "stuffed shirt" lawyers, over anxious mothers, slovenly sports writers, and stressed businessmen, each of whom the author has presumably met somewhere. They are engaging, amusing, and humorous. But do they reveal the rest of us to ourselves?I am not sure. The twists of plot are fairly predictable and the unraveling of character is equally so. All Simon's plays are entertaining, but perhaps that is his gift, providing the public with a relaxing evening of laughter and amusement, not a battle with conscience or a summons to social justice. Not that I am ready to dismiss Simon as a shallow writer. He's not that, exactly. But neither is he an Ibsen tearing beneath the shallow surface of existence to discover previously undisclosed truths. So we may come to the end of almost any of his plays satisfied, but unchallenged, relaxed but not profoundly stimulated.Is there a place for this type of drama? Of course there is, but does it come close to being a waste of talent? Perhaps so,in some ways. But if that's case, there's no doubt that Simon has brought delight to many an audience.

Book group

As a speech and debate coach, I'm always looking for pieces for my competitors to perform at tournament. Neil Simon has always been one of my personal favorite authors, because he does such an amazing job of meshing comic gold with poignant social commentary. The first volume of his collected works has some great material that takes very little effort to adapt to whatever presentational format you might need.

Don't get me wrong, I love Neil Simon... his plays are hilarious, he helped define a generation of thetare, and his plays are crowd pleasing. His plays read more like period pieces now, which is unfortunate. There are many jokes that don't play as well with modern technologies and attitudes (what the hell is a telegram?). Great, classic plays. Kind of like a 1960's William Shakespeare.

It's Neil Simon

I bought a Kindle version of this book for use during a table read. The electronic format is horribly garbled. I have attached a small image of one of the pages. You can see how difficult it is to read. I had to copy bits of text to a PowerPoint file so that I had something that I could read from. I would not recommend the Kindle version of this book to anyone.

The dialogue is incredible. I heard he spent three years revising Come Blow Your Horn, and it shows. Interesting to see how Simon structures his plays--his main storyline often gets overshadowed by a subplot or secondary characters.

How can I give anything with Neil Simon's name on it a bad review? I love the man's work and don't care if it has some wear and tear on it. A little folding and a few footnotes is better than paying Barnes and Noble prices for the same thing.

The maestro of humorous play writing....each one is a masterclass in snappy dialogue and brilliantly crafted plot.Highly recommend.

Seminal plays in a well produced, good quality book - arrived in good condition and in a timely fashion

The book arrived earlier than expected.It’s in great condition and I’m really looking forward to reading it throughout the rest of the winter.Thank you

I love watching Neil Simon plays/films, and it's great to be able to read them too.

Great book