Is Neil Simon going soft? Or is the prodigiously industrious playwright tapped out? One hopes not, but his latest effort, "I Ought to Be in Pictures," an oddly muted comedy …, is, when all is said and done by its three characters, an empty and labored evening. "Shaky confidence" is ascribed to the middle-aged hero by his middle-aged mistress, and it also seems to be Simon's problem here. Teetering on the edge of sentimentality, this play about a father and daughter rediscovering—or discovering, really—one another after a long separation worries its subject all evening long, never daring to be either too funny or too caring.

It has been written and directed … and is acted with painstaking attention to detail and an almost solemn air of sincerity. But there is little evidence of enthusiasm in the writing, so that in the end we are only aware of contrivance...