Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Plaback Tuesday: Write It Again, Neil


I feel this need to revisit Neil Simon and his memoir. I've been thinking about it a lot. He structures each chapter and each chapter title around his plays. Usually, it is a comical or ironic spoiler. But in a way it just helps to underscore how much his plays, his writings, his creative ideas are apart of his life. I think a lot of time for artists a discussion naturally arises about how much of their work is a part of or separate from their personal life. Neil Simon makes it so clear that it can often be difficult to separate your passions from who are as an individual, and yet he does it in a way that is not pretentious but honest.

His book is part reflection on his plays (the stories or situations that influenced them) and part just the tale of a man reflecting on his life--the good, the bad, and the ugly.

He talks about the hits, the flops, and the writing projects he secretly contributed to (A Chorus Line). If you have the time to read it I recommend it as a good (and ultimately positive) read. Oh, and another I learned...playwriting involves a lot of rewrites.

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