John Simon: P Diddy Has Presence ... Alacrity

We are in "the last days," people; the last days. Strange things are happening. Jesus is right around the corner. Will you be Left Behind? John Kerry's presidential campaign is shaping up to be the biggest natural disaster since Al Gore. George Bush's base is starting to abandon him. Now, John Simon, the ultrasnarky New York Magazine theater critic, has some, sort of, nice things, to say about P Diddy's performance in Raisin in the Sun:

"Under Kenny Leon�s meat-and-potatoes direction, all the principals in Raisin�Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan, and young Alexander Mitchell�do admirably. As for Sean Combs as Walter Lee, his eyes widen a bit too readily, his limbs are so loose as to threaten flying apart, and his face is curiously babyish. Still, he has genuine presence, and his emoting, except in a moment of utmost dejection, has alacrity�no diddling or puffery�and shows potential, if not quite yet heart."

Genuine presence .. alacrity ... boyishness ... no diddling or puffery?

On the subject of snark, Bob Hoover of the Pittsburg Post Gazette wrote on Simon:

"John Simon's dismissal in The Times of Norman Mailer's 1991 'Harlot's Ghost' came close.

"Confronted with that 1,300-page 'widow-maker,' Simon summed up Mailer as 'a punch-drunk writer trying to outbox all competition, real or imaginary.'"

The Hindu of India (no, that was not a typo) summed it up:

"But the review that really got Mailer's goat, perhaps because it appeared in the one publication that matters most to American writers, was that of John Simon in the New York Times Book Review.

"Simon, better known as a theatre critic, found Harlot's Ghost an 'arbitrary, lopsided, lumpy novel that outstays its welcome'. Mailer's 'hang-ups are too naked, puerile, perverse", wrote Simon, adding that "what he lacks is (a good) editor'. Worse has been written by reviewers � and some of Simon's 2,500-word critique was even complimentary � but Mailer blew a gasket. He stormed into the offices of the New York Times, demanding � and obtaining � a meeting with the Managing Editor of the paper and the editor of the Book Review section. Simon, he alleged, was biased against him: Mailer had apparently described Simon years ago as being 'as predictable in his critical reactions as a headwaiter.'"

A kinder, gentler John Simon? Naaaaaahh.