"Fools" is Neil Simon's nineteenth play in twenty years—and his weakest. It's a fable about a Ukrainian village whose inhabitants are under a curse of stupidity. Apparently Simon is trying to say something about how society can wrongly label some of its groups; maybe this is his allegory on race and IQ. If so, he's wrecked an important subject by trying to be a folk artist, forgetting that he is a folk artist in his real plays like "The Odd Couple" and "The Sunshine Boys." "Fools" is so cute it commits cutecide. Wait till next year.
Jack Kroll, "Simple Simon," in Newsweek, Vol. XCVII, No. 16, April 20, 1981, p. 104.
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