[Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue"] is full of the humor and intelligence characteristic of this brilliant comic playwright….

Here he is wryly contemplating the misfortune of a Manhattan family. The husband has lost his job, is fighting pollution and his neighbors, and faces the problems of living in a violent city. In fact, he is about to undergo a nervous breakdown. His wise and understanding wife is for a while the pillar of the family, but, after her job has gone and their apartment has been stripped by robbers, she, too, has a breakdown. It's a hard world, and the Edisons are soon aware of it.

This is surely the material for a serious drama, but Mr. Simon has a gift for taking a grave subject and, without losing sight of its basic seriousness, treating it with hearty but sympathetic humor. Because he has a talent...