I begin to perceive that I may have been unfair to Neil Simon in pursuing over the years a theory about him which has been, after all, entirely inside my head and not his, and which I have therefore had no reason to grow impatient with him for failing to live up to. The awkward fact of the matter is that I have thought I could detect a certain figure in the brightly colored wall-to-wall carpet of his work, but Mr. Simon has now made it plain that the figure isn't there and never was there; moreover, he has proceeded to pull the carpet itself right out from under me…. After Mr. Simon's dazzling "Barefoot in the Park," which, though but an airy, negligible anecdote, filled a whole evening with delight, I wondered whether he wasn't going to lead comedy in a new direction—one in which a...