Neil Simon Play
My Favorite Neil Simon Play Was Also a Movie. I am of the opinion that Neil Simon is one of the greatest contemporary playwrights in America, and my favorite Neil Simon play was also made into a terrific movie back in 1988.
Biloxi Blues is the story of Eugene Jerome, a young man from New York who has been drafted into the army during World War II and sent to do his basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi. There, he is enlisted with a group of guys from various places that bring their own unique idiosyncrasies and perspectives into the story to make for an interesting and diverse cast of characters.
He also is introduced to Sgt. Merwin J. Toomey, who is obviously not completely mentally stable, and that makes for some interesting story lines in and of itself. What I like most about this particular Neil Simon play is that it is semi-autobiographical. Knowing that going into the play makes it that much more engaging, because you know that most of the things that happened to the main character actually happened to Simon himself.
Another thing that I liked about this Neil Simon play is that it addressed a lot of issues that would likely seem taboo for that particular time period. Subjects like race and ethnicity, homosexuality, anti-antisemitism, prostitution and Toomey’s mental illness were all featured in Simon’s play and provided an opportunity to see how those issues were dealt with (or not dealt with) back in the 1940s. This Neil Simon play was made into the movie of the same name, and it was actually Matthew Broderick who played the role of Jerome in both the stage and film versions. The play made its debut in 1985, while the movie premiered three years later.
I think one of the things that appealed most to be about the play, and the movie, for that matter, was just the idea behind it all: the life of a group of regular guys, who are obviously young and somewhat immature, preparing to embark on the something so grand with no clue as to whether or not they would ever return.
They did have their misgivings at times, but they were still prepared to go and serve their country and give their lives if necessary for the greater cause. We have never had a conflict close to the scale of World War II in my lifetime, and I can’t even imagine what that must have been like.
The Neil Simon play Biloxi Blues is one of my all-time favorite plays. It manages to weave humor into a very serious situation so effectively that it did not detract from the storyline, and it just makes you feel good watching it.
