SOURCE: “Downstairs, Upstairs: Lost in Yonkers, Steps and Friends,” in Commonweal, Vol. CXVIII, No. 9, May 3, 1991, pp. 293-94.

In the following excerpt, Weales compares and contrasts Ayckbourn and Neil Simon in reviewing Lost in Yonkers, Taking Steps and Absent Friends.

One of the commonplaces of casual criticism is to suggest or to deny that there are strong similarities between Neil Simon and Alan Ayckbourn. Benedict Nightingale was in the denial column recently (New York Times, February 10) in an article preceding the opening of two early Ayckbourn plays, Taking Steps (1979), which is still playing at the Circle in the Square, and Absent Friends (1974), which played the usual limited run at Manhattan Theatre Club. Both playwrights are phenomenally successful in their own countries and not much admired abroad, and their styles are certainly very different. What they have in common is a very black view of human possibilities and a desire...