Simple Simon

David West Read's The Performers, starring Henry Winkler and Alicia Silverstone, just opened on Broadway.  It got some decent reviews, but received a pan from Ben Brantley in The New York Times, which is a death sentence.

Here's Brantley:

... Mr. Read’s perky account of innocents in porn land, centered on a film awards presentation in Las Vegas, feels like a throwback to the more discreetly risqué entertainments of 40 and 50 years ago. Though its author is only 29, “The Performers” is like an early Neil Simon farce with an X-rated vocabulary [....] In those days middle-class audiences—alarmed and titillated by the loud groans of a sexual counterculture it couldn’t ignore—found reassurance in stage and screen fare that skirted the wild side but wound up nestled down by the family hearth.

So Neil Simon now stands for unfunny, square comedy?  Which titles are Brantley referring to? Barefoot In The Park?  The Odd Couple?  Plaza Suite? The Prisoner Of Second Avenue?  Definitely The Last Of The Red Hot Lovers.

I'm not denying there were corny, old-fashioned, sitcommish comedies on Broadway 50-odd years ago (though not quite so many 40 years ago), but Neil Simon is a bit better than that.  He's a masterful comedy writer who based his work in character and doesn't indulge that much in snickering, even when dealing with direct sexual topics.  It's sad that Brantley feels he can casually refer to Simon's early work--which is some of his best--as dated and beneath the notice of a modern playgoer.