Reviewed by David Spencer
Mr. Simon, our preëminent craftsman of theatre comedy--comedy with deeper and more bittersweet subtext as he continues to explore his art--has always been cautious about...well, call it what you will, verité, naked revelation, exploration of dark corners. Or perhaps "cautious" is the wrong word. Mr. Simon's autobiography suggests--consciously in places, but I think subconsciously in others--that he's only capable of depth in his writing during those periods that force him to access the depth within himself, be they growth spurts, tragedies or the ability to look anew at people who are/were close to him. Having been a boy who used humor as a way to "normalize" a broken home, to deal with a distant, absentee father, poverty and an overworked mother, there could be nothing in the world more natural than for him to have carried that reflex, that defense, over into his adult, professional life.
But, the longer Simon lives with himself, the more inescapable certain truths become. I think one of the two miracles of "Rewrites" is that its author reveals as much as he is able to understand. I don't believe he's holding back at all.
Here and there, true, he chooses discretion about events, such as the disintegration of his longterm relationship with producer and onetime-friend Saint Subber. Subber appears in the book primarily as a man who believed in and encouraged Simon, producing all his non-musical plays from Come Blow Your Horn through The Prisoner of Second Avenue, and the transition is recounted only in skeletal fashion. The relationship seems to turn an unpleasant corner with The Gingerbread Lady, which Subber nearly closed out-of-town...but that near-closing is not recounted as a personal betrayal; rather, it seems the consequence of Subber having perfectly understandable doubts about his own judgment. (He had rashly made Simon promise "not to change a word" of the first draft; it was only when Simon realized he'd have to break that promise that the play was given its fighting chance.)
No, the book's final word--indeed, only direct words on the subject--have to do with Subber fretting, while Prisoner of Second Avenue was in rehearsal, that Simon hadn't yet begun his next play. A remark which caused Simon to blow his stack. ("What am I, a writing machine? Is all my life about turning out plays for you?" is how the tirade begins.) Later on, in interviews, Subber was quoted by the press as having said, "You have to be careful if you cross [Simon] because he can be very dangerous." Simon writes of this: "Ends of friendships don't just happen. The estrangement has to be fed and nurtured daily by large doses of insensitivities." True enough, in many cases. But "Memoirs" doesn't put that nurturing much in evidence, and the split, from the evidence, seems like something two grown men should have been able to work out.
And there are pieces missing. No, I'll correct that--they're not missing, they're just not here (I'll explain that in a minute). Simon, for example, spends very little time on his early career, when he wrote for Your Show of Shows starring Sid Caesar, on a staff of writers that included Brooks, Reiner, Gelbart and others of like caliber. You would think that to be memoir-fodder of the highest order, and you'd be right, if "Rewrites" were merely a chronological recollection.
But it isn't. The alert reader will note that it is, instead, as structured as any of Simon's best plays. There are two common formulas he might have followed. The first is the "I was born..." approach. The second is the approach that starts with a seminal event in the subject's life, then flashes back to childhood, then follows the years leading up to the seminal event, and moves on to the present day--or however far beyond the event the writer chooses to travel.
Simon has eschewed both formulæ and tried something that is, in my experience, unique.
And that's the second miracle of "Rewrites".
He uses his theatrical career, always, as the main time-line. After a brief foreword, Simon begins by recounting how he started to write his first play. What led to the decision, where he lived, and with whom. That whom being his first wife, Joan--clearly the great love of his life. As he examines the people and events surrounding Come Blow Your Horn, he free-associates to childhood memories that influenced the story. Once done with them, he's back in the present, and soon discussing Barefoot in the Park. Barefoot, of course, is based on the early years of his marriage, and from Barefoot he slips easily, and without fanfare, into the summers at Tamiment, where he and his brother Danny wrote special material, and where he and Joan first met. And thus the pattern continues.
Already that's pretty cool. The truth is, we're most interested in his theatrical career, and it's refreshing (and a relief) that he doesn't take us on a concentrated detour to his far past; he doles out the past evenly, only as necessary, only when it informs his theatrical life, which gives it a deeper meaning and makes it most effective.
But the very alert reader will note that something even more subtle is going on. For as much as this is a theatrical memoir...it's also the memoir of a marriage. Joan is there, right at the top of the book. And each time Simon returns to his theatrical career, she is more there; not always taking up more words or more scenes, but more present, more of a life force, more the spirit that anchors him in reality as his career takes off into success beyond fantasy.
And by the last third of the book, Joan has taken over the story. It remains Simon's rite-of-passage, but the plays are discussed in less and less detail (the work process, it seems, remains pretty much the same--it is the marriage that grows and changes). And by the time you read about Joan being diagnosed with terminal cancer--and, no mistake, Mr. Simon makes you love her nearly as much as he did--you almost wish Mr. Simon hadn't tricked you quite so expertly. (Perhaps not consciously--but expertly. Maybe he even tricked himself.) This isn't the ride you thought you were going to take. Then again, as Simon makes clear, it wasn't the ride he expected either.
Those moments in which he is coming to grips with losing her are about as moving as anything I've read on the printed page. Ever. And they're almost too much to bear. Not because they're graphic, or self-pitying, or tortured. Again, Simon tends not to go there. What's so painfully touching is the intense sweetness that underscores everything, the feeling of childlike helplessness in people who are, despite anything they might wish at this awful moment, adults, with adult responsibilities. And, of course, the book ends at Joan's death, with Simon the father of two daughters, looking into an uncertain future without her.
If I understand correctly from a recent Charlie Rose interview, Simon was gently goaded into autobiography by others. But clearly, too, he thought the time was right to assess his life, to give it, in retrospect, a kind of structure. And he discovered, along the way, that what gave much of it structure was Joan. And after Joan--it became a different structure, a different story, one to be told at another time.
Thus, in the end, I don't think he wrote this one for us. That is, perhaps, why there are fewer pithy showbiz anecdotes than one might expect. What we get are the anecdotes that mean something to him, to how he perceives his identity and development as an artist, and as a human being. I think he wrote "Rewrites" for himself. Maybe for Joan, too. He was under no obligation to share it--or her--with us.
But he does. And I don't know about you, but I can't think of a more intensely personal revelation than that...