Word: witnesses
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...been said, by a malicious Polish wit, that it takes five Southern Californians to unscrew a light bulb, four of whom share the experience. Thus it was on the hills above Malibu Beach, where the experience shared over the past three weeks was a construction crew's herculean effort to remove a 116-ton boulder that had perched over a row of fancy houses lining the Pacific Coast Highway...
...play isn't completely grim. The celebrated Simon wit constantly bubbles forth, especially during a sub-plot that involves the hero's brother and the heroine's best girlfriend. In contrast to the hasty marriage of the principals, this couple never quite gets around to having an affair, despite persistent efforts. But even this comic relief contains solemn undertones; both would-be adulterers carry wounds that neither can successfully hide from the other...
Happily, Chapter Two is not quite as grim as its plot: characteristic Simon wit surfaces frequently. For instance, when George accuses Leo of fixing him up with a prostitute, his brother indignantly defends the girl, and then asks. "Why, did she charge you?" On the whole, however. Simon avoids his usually relentless parade of quips. Chapter Two possesses none of the slick quality that mars some of his earlier plays, which made his characters sound like professional stand-up comedians, not believable human beings. Instead, the humor approaches the way people actually talk or joke, and even helps to crystallize...
DIED. Jean Renoir, 84, master French film maker whose work strongly reflected his own ironic wit, love of nature and sympathetic curiosity about human behavior; of a heart attack; in Beverly Hills, Calif. Son of Impressionist Painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean as a red-haired child often posed for him and later married one of his models. With his wife as the star, Renoir directed his first movie in 1924; during the next 45 years he directed and wrote some three dozen films, among them such masterpieces as Toni (1934), the antiwar Grand Illusion (1937) and The Rules...
...wisecrack. Neither the intellectual pomp inherent in the lecture format, nor the stolid, somber Eliot House library can dampen his compulsive sense of humor. "The plays are the essence of me," he says. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he is the essence of his plays; his wit flows so effortlessly, so smoothly that it seems innate. Neil Simon, apparently can't help being funny...