TEHRAN – The play “The Good Doctor” written by the American playwright Neil Simon will go on stage at the Chegaseh Plateau in Jam County, Bushehr Province, late May.

Mohammad Javad Abbasi has directed the 50-minute play and performs in it along with Reza Musa, Bita Noshadi, Diana Kazemi, Mehdi Harati, Elina Kazemi, Mahla Navar, and Shaker Yousefi.

“The Good Doctor” is a comedy with music written by Neil Simon. It consists of a series of short plays, based on short stories and other works of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov, framed by a writer making comments on them.

A combination of Simon and Chekhov, the play is, by turns, charming, hilarious, sad, and touching. It centers around a writer who speaks to the audience and shares his writing with them throughout the day. He presents them with a plethora of scenes: some are from his childhood, others are his family and friends, and still others are his own life experiences. The audience meets a variety of characters, all of whom are immediately relatable and strikingly human.

In one sketch, a harridan storms a bank and upbraids the manager for his gout and lack of money. In another, a father takes his son to a house where he will be initiated into the mysteries of life, only to relent at the last moment and leave the boy more perplexed than ever. In another sketch, a crafty seducer goes to work on a wedded woman, only to realize that the woman has been in command from the first overture.

Neil Simon (1927 – 2018) was a playwright, screenwriter, and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He received three Tony Awards and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. 

He was awarded a Special Tony Award in 1975, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1991, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995, and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006.

His first produced play was “Come Blow Your Horn” (1961). It took him three years to complete, and ran for 678 performances on Broadway. It was followed by two more successes, “Barefoot in the Park” (1963) and “The Odd Couple” (1965). He won a Tony Award for the latter. It made him a national celebrity and the hottest new playwright on Broadway. 

From the 1960s to the 1980s, he wrote for stage and screen; some of his screenplays were based on his own works for the stage. His style ranged from farce to romantic comedy to more serious dramatic comedy.

Overall, he garnered 17 Tony nominations and won three awards. In 1966, he had four successful productions running on Broadway at the same time. In 1983, he became the only living playwright to have a New York theater, the Neil Simon Theater, named in his honor.

“The Good Doctor” will be staged for a week at Chegaseh Plateau in Jam County, from May 15 to 21.

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