By Eric Justin
Neil Simon's plays usually become comedy classics. Here and there, some of them fall short, but not often. Simon has a gift for writing good, intimate comedy against the backdrop of America.
The Odd Couple is a genuine comedic masterpiece and Biloxi Blues, Brighton Beach Memoirs and many of Simon's plays are some of the funniest shows ever to play Broadway. Lost in Yonkers won him a 1991 Pulitzer Prize and in 1995, Simon's latest play, Laughter on the 23rd Floor opened on Broadway to outstanding reviews.
Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Simon's tribute to comedy genius Sid Caesar and the historic slice of American television Caesar pioneered, plays at the Hippodrome through May 5, and is well worth the student discount price of admission.
Laughter, set in 1953, is a window back to an America where television was young. Simon's autobiographical play recreates the mayhem and neuroses of a group of brilliantly funny social misfits as they write a weekly variety program called the "Max Prince Show."
The situations and characters are modeled after Simon's experiences starting out as a writer for Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" in the 1950s that dominated television for years.
Among the cast of characters are Milt, the insult artist; Ira, the hypochondriac whose dream is to have a virus named after him; and Val, a Russian emigre who takes Berlitz courses so he can curse without an accent. They are all devoted to their boss, Max, a comic genius, a tyrant and a paranoiac with a heart of gold. But his drinking and pill popping grows under the pressure of a rising McCarthyism, network executives and sponsors who want him to be more of a family show, which means dumbing down his show.
Max, at some point goes on a hilarious tirade about network executives only wanting to put shit on television because it's easier for America to swallow. As he rants about the apparent shit factory television looks like it's becoming, one of Simon's points becomes painfully clear: television has become a shit factory.
When the McCarthy smoke cleared, America was left shaken up forever with a twisted political future ahead and hours and hours of bad TV.
But that's not really the main point. Simon just wants to honor the memory of people like Sid Caesar and his writers, that included Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner who sat in smoke-filled rooms up in corporate buildings, locked away from the executives and sponsors, and wrote damn funny television shows while having a pretty good time.
The Hippodrome's production of Laughter on the 23rd Floor is impressive with an excellent set and fine actors that do justice to Simon's personal account of his bizarre, early years as writer.
(4/18/96)