N

RIOTOUS COMEDY

Jest
Second!

A

SIMON-IZING

by James Sherman

October 16 - November 17

"Hilarious"— Chicago Sun Times

"BEAU JEST" sequel — the continuing

adventures of Sarah Goldman
and her family!

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page 83

While many of Simon's plays
stray from the truth, others are
semi-autobiographical. His
wife's death inspired God's Fa-
vorite (1974) and Chapter Two
(1977), which is also based on
his subsequent marriage to ac-
tress Marsha Mason a few
months after Joan passed
away. (He first met Mason
when she auditioned for a role
in his play The Good Doctor
(1973).) Simon wrote the farce
Rumors (1988) following the
break-up of his first marriage
to third wife, Diane Lander
(they subsequently remarried),
and the tragic death of his son-
in-law at age 29.
"I am Jewish, and in some
of the plays that I write, the
characters are Jewish," says
Simon. "But in plays like Bare-
foot in the Park or The Odd
Couple, it never occurred to me
if the characters were Jewish
or not. In others, I had to deal
specifically with it, especially
in Brighton Beach Memoirs
and Biloxi Blues. In Biloxi
Blues, I dealt with anti-Semi-
tism and homosexuality. I had
to deal with my Jewishness
differently [in the armed ser-
vices] than how it was being
Jewish in New York."
While attending Hebrew
school, Simon remembers be-
ing told very dogmatic biblical
stories, which he often ques-
tioned.
"You have to believe in
something. Yourself or God,"
he writes in his book. "Since I
am still skeptical about the ex-
istence of God — except when
I need Him badly — I tend to
trust myself the most. If you
think you have no power over
your life, you dismiss any
worth to your existence. You

are at the mercy or whim of life
itself, and I find that to be the
most hopeless and helpless po-
sition to be in.
"If character is fate, as the
Greeks tell us, then it was my
fate to become a playwright,
not my destiny. Destiny seems
to be preordained by the gods.
Fate comes to those who con-
tinue on the path they started
on when all other possible
roads were closed to them.
Fate is both your liability and

ABOUT HIS
MENTAL BLOCK
WITH ACT III
OF THE
01313 COUPLE:

"I sat down in an empty pew
at St. Patrick's Cathedral in
New York to gather my
thoughts. Being a Jew, I
knew this was the wrong
time and the wrong place to
start praying for help. But af-
ter a few minutes, I heard an
inner voice speak to me, per-
haps God Himself. He said,
`If you have wandered into
this cathedral, it's with good
reason. If this is the place
where you will find peace of
mind to do your work, so be
it ... But don't make a habit
of it.' "

—

From Rewrites

your hope ... For a man who
wants to be his own master, to
depend on no one else, to make
life conform to his own visions
rather than to follow the blue-
prints of others, playwriting is
the perfect occupation."
His occupation continues as
he prepares his 31st play, Pro-
posals, to open on Broadway in
November 1997.
As for a sequel to his book?
We'll just have to wait for More

Rewrites.

❑

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