Even the great Neil Simon can flop on Broadway

The veteran American playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon, whose hits over the years have included Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple and The Goodbye Girl, says he is "dumbfounded" at the news that his latest Broadway production has closed only a week after it opened.

"After all these years, I still don't get how Broadway works or what to make of our culture," the 82-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winner and three times Tony Award winner told the New York Times at the weekend.

The production in question was the latest revival of his play Brighton Beach Memoirs (pictured above). It closed after it cost $3m to produce but never grossed more than $125,000 a week in ticket sales during preview performances. According to the New York Times, this was not even enough to cover running costs at the Nederlander Theatre.

As a result of the closure, another Simon play that was due to follow it, Broadway Bound, will not open at all.

The New York Times offered a number of reasons why the normally reliable Brighton Beach Memoirs - Simon's most produced play over the past 25 years - should suddenly flop, even after good reviews.

♦ Number one is that the play is about a Depression-era family laughing through the tears. Who wants to be reminded that they're living through the closest thing to a new Depression?

♦ Number two is that the public taste in humour has moved on. Simon's heavily plotted comedy is far removed from the sardonic homour of TV's The Office or the frathouse banter of The Hangover, one of this summer's most successful comedy films. "What audiences are seeking in humour is getting more raw and edgy than Simon's work," said Matthew Maguire, director of the theatre program at Fordham University

♦ Number three - it's not a musical. "There will always be an audience for a well-done revival of a great musical, but reviving a period-piece play now takes a special alchemy," said Andre Bishop, artistic director of Lincoln Centre Theatre, where South Pacific is playing. Revivals of Hair and West Side Story are also are doing well on Broadway this year.

♦ Number four, Brighton Beach Memoirs had no stars. The best-known cast member was Laurie Metcalf, a respected actress who played in the long-gone TV show, Roseanne. On Broadway today, the non-musical money-spinners star Daniel Craig (A Steady Rain), Jude Law (Hamlet) and James Gandolfini (God of Carnage). The average price paid for a ticket to Brighton Beach Memoirs in its final days was $21. The comparative ticket price for Hamlet was $104.