From all accounts the base closings proposed last week are
hitting the country hard and causing understandable consternation
and anger. Lost in this news was a more outrageous shutdown of a
long-time defender of the nation’s cultural security.
John Simon was unceremoniously dumped last week as New
York magazine’s theater critic, a few days before his 80th
birthday. It’s a position he’s filled for 37 years and as such was
probably the last readable writer left at the increasingly
consumerist weekly. Regardless, given Simon’s exceptional
erudition, intelligence, productivity, unbudgeable intellectual
honesty and integrity — and wit — it’s a crime what they’ve done
to him. A swinish, unforgiveable crime.
Of course I’m taking it personally. I’ve been reading Simon for
some four decades, ever since I first came across him in the
New Leader, where he was film critic. Later he would
review movies for Esquire and then National
Review, retiring from the latter several years ago. It’s not
surprising that NR has yet to replace him. Simon came of
age when “critic” meant something. Readers would rely on him for
brilliance, impeccable knowledge, and fine writing. The clarity of
his thought was a constant. It’s thus no accident he also wrote
about language and defended English against its corrupters. Or that
all his writing was done in longhand. (His letters are models,
among other things, of the cleanest penmanship.) An entirely modern
man, he has ended up a one-man force against the onslaught of
ugliness, vulgarity, cant, trendiness, and dirt that has taken over
our times.
It was thus fitting that the cheapest reaction to Simon’s demise
appeared on Arianna Huffington’s new website from none other than
theater bad boy David Mamet. Reacting to the news that Simon had
been “fired” from a post “he long disgraced,” Mamet said Simon “has
finally done something for the American Theatre.” I suppose Mamet
should be congratulated for not resorting to a single four-letter
word in his brief commentary. What had Simon ever done to him?
Surely not close down one of his productions? Simon never had that
kind of power; it wasn’t what interested him. Nor did Simon keep
him from becoming a darling of the theater set. One can only
conclude Mamet loathed him because Simon saw right through him.
Consider the current revival of Mamet’s ever crude Glengarry
Glen Ross. From all indications, the reviews have ranged from
gushing to fawning to respectful. With one exception. Here’s just
one paragraph from Simon’s May 16 review. Who’s the cat and who’s the rat, er,
mouse?
Mamet’s own, most idiosyncratic contribution is
reveling in obscenity and scatology. Thus one twelve-word speech of
Richard Roma’s in Glengarry contains five “fuck”s and one
“fucking.” In the printed play, two “fuck”s are italicized, one
also capitalized; three, plus the one “fucking,” are in capitals.
The 1984 play, you may recall, takes place in a Chicago real-estate
office — Mamet worked in one — where a bunch of hardened
hucksters hustle worthless Florida land developments with those
fancy Scottish monikers. A foulmouthed gang they are, though I
doubt that even these guys would talk such mangled and mephitic
Mametese. Glengarry’s two acts last 105 minutes; I reckon
that just by cutting the “dirty” words, the whole thing could be
turned into a slightly oversize one-acter.
But Simon has also met the enemy, and it isn’t merely the
playwright.
The night I attended, just about every “fuck” got at
least a laugh somewhere in the house, and a spate of such language
never failed to unleash gales of laughter. Any piece of devious
one-upmanship pulled by the sleazy characters elicited thunderous
approval, even applause. Clearly, this play is something not just
to watch but to be wallowed in.
As always, Simon’s last word captures the bigger picture:
Of course, there’ll always be reviewers and audiences
who groove on Mamet’s cloacal litanies, cataracts of cacology, and
the nastily clever — but not all that clever — verbal power games
that all gleefully indulge in. Whoever wants this is welcome to it;
mud wrestling also has its dedicated fans. But what are we to make
of a theater — of a culture — that considers this stuff high
art?
Swine can only respond in one way to pearls like that. They set
it in motion last week. This summer Applause Books will publish
three volumes of Simon’s criticism. It had better be the cause of
major celebration, long overdue tributes — and a very serious
apology.
