©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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Although Simon originally intended this book to be his complete autobiography, he ultimately decided to limit it to the period between 1957, when he began his first play, and 1973, when his beloved first wife Joan died. Consequently, he spends relatively little time talking about his days as a television writer, except for the hilarious account of his labors for Jerry Lewis that opens the book. Simon was in therapy during part of this period, and several flashbacks to his warring and constantly separating parents reveal why.
The book's title is quickly clarified as we watch Simon painstakingly roll out one draft after another of his plays until everyone concerned is satisfied. His first effort, Come Blow Your Horn, went through 22 complete rewrites, he tells us, before it reached its final form.
From the start, Simon drew heavily on the personal to shape and populate his plays. Come Blow Your Horn, he says, was broadly about his own family. Barefoot in the Park was inspired by the euphoric early days of his marriage to Joan. The Odd Couple grew out of his brother Danny's experience of sharing an apartment with a friend after their marriages had broken up.
In an evidently painful aside, Simon confesses that his business acumen never came close to matching his skills as a dramatist. For example, he sold the ancillary rights to Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple for a mere $125,000. In so doing, he failed to earn a cent from the many stage productions of the former or from the long-running TV series based on the latter.
Besides being a chronicle of Simon's development as a playwright, Rewrites also functions on two other levels. It's an education in how the American theater operates, and it's very much a love story. Simon immerses us in the interactive world of producers, directors, business managers, agents, actors, choreographers, set designers, and critics.
As befits a playwright, Simon has a great ear for quotes and nuances, a gift that enables him to reconstruct conversations that occurred years before. (He recalls an excessively tipsy Maureen Stapleton proclaiming, as she is being ushered away from an opening night party, "If I wake up alone tomorrow, someone will pay for it.")
Threaded through the memoirs is Simon's passion for and reliance on Joan, whom he had met and wooed at a summer resort in the Poconos. Like him, she loved New York and detested Hollywood. She encouraged him to follow his muse as it led him from television to the stage. She gave him two lively daughters. And she was the consistent voice of sanity amid all the show business babble. Even when Simon became caught up in the "sexual revolution" of the late '60s and decided to leave Joan, she was able to set matters right without ever raising her voice.
Neil Simon emerges from Rewrites as a complex, likable man we want to know more about. He is a beacon to every Broadway buff still eager in the provinces.
Edward Morris is a Nashville journalist.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.