The Sunshine Boys

by Neil Simon

Book Overview

Full Length, Comedy / 5m, 2f / Scenery: Interior Al and Willie as "Lewis and Clark" were top-billed vaudevillians for over forty years. Now they aren't even speaking. When CBS requests them for a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394488083
• ISBN13: 9780394488080
• Release Date: October 1973
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 109 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Brilliantly Comic Paean to Friendship

Critics have lately been calling THE SUNSHINE BOYS Neil Simon's masterpiece, and with good reason. The play seems to be the comedy to end all comedies. Its main characters, Al Lewis and Willie Clark, are elderly, retired vaudevillians who were a beloved team onstage but bicker over trivialities in real life. Their interaction in the play - as well as Willie's interaction with his nephew and agent, Ben Silverman - is almost entirely in the form of sight gags and one-liners; this is the most flamboyantly theatrical of all Simon's comedies. Yet, like THE ODD COUPLE, THE SUNSHINE BOYS is ultimately a celebration of friendship, as it eventually becomes clear that Al and Willie love and need each other, just as do Felix and Oscar in the earlier play. Their final scene together is one of genuine pathos, and this is, after all, another essential ingredient of fine comedy. As much as I love THE ODD COUPLE, THE SUNSHINE BOYS is my favorite Simon play, because, even more so than THE ODD COUPLE, it touches your heart as it makes you laugh out loud.