Friday, February 5, 2010

A dark comedy for the whole family! (my first book review)


Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park"
3 out of 5 Stars
Fiction, Play, Dark Comedy


Barefoot in the Park was a bath book. This was the perfect story to read in the tub with bubbles and candles.

It starts with a newlywed couple (Corie and Paul) that find this great new apartment! If you discount the size, the fact that it's on the fifth floor, the hole in the skylight, the backwards plumbing, and oh, did I mention the crazy man living on the roof?
It becomes even wackier when Corie's mother comes to see their new home and Victor falls in love.


Act 1 and 2 were so funny I was practically in tears laughing. It's also very quick and witty.
Act 3 becomes very dark and slows down quite a bit.



*****Spoiler Alert*****


After Corie, Paul, Mother, and Victor go out to dinner in Act 2, things start to go downhill.
They started to lose me in Act 3 when Corie and Paul get a divorce. The moral of the story starts to show and it gets a bit sappy.
But, you can be sure that Neil Simon wraps up the story quite nicely with everyone laughing off the silly problems that took up their lives.



*********************



Conclusion:

Pros:

Very funny
quick read
connected to the story feeling
witty characters

Cons:

very sad climax
Only one set through the whole story
would have liked to see more of the telephone man's character

3 comments:

  1. Im gonna have to read it - I skipped the spoiler :D

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  2. I loved the telephone man! Im glad he came back for a second appearance. Personally, I like simple sets. Maybe because they are easier for me to visualize, so I was glad that there was only one (and I had a hard time with that one.) The first bits were wicked funny! Great review! :D

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