[NEohioPAL] GLTG's "The Odd Couple: Female Version" Preview

[Bob Abelman]

GLTG deals out odd version of 'Couple'

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This preview appeared in the News-Herald 5/08/09

 

When discussions of classic American theatre take place in coffee shops and college classrooms, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf usually work their way into the conversation.  The quality of their writing and the significance of their subject matter render these plays immediately recognizable, truly distinctive and very popular to perform. 

 

If providing pleasure were added to the mix of what makes a classic a classic, Neil Simon's The Odd Couple would have to be given due recognition.  Although comedy is typically considered a lesser performing art form than drama, that play is, nonetheless, masterfully written and taps into one of the most significant social movements of our time-divorce.

 

 It is also hilarious.

 

In addition, The Odd Couple happens to be one of the most celebrated contemporary plays, going from its original 1965 Broadway staging starring Walter Matthau and Art Carney, to a 1968 movie with Matthau and Jack Lemmon, to a 1970's sitcom featuring Jack Klugman and Tony Randall.

 

The play is about two poker playing buddies who move in together to save money for alimony and discover they're having the same conflicts they had in their marriages. Felix Unger is a compulsively neat, emotionally repressed health nut and Oscar Madison is his Bizarro World opposite.  

 

In 1985, playwright Simon revised The Odd Couple to accommodate a female cast for a short-lived Broadway run starring Sally Struthers and Rita Moreno as Florence Unger and Olive Madison.  Starting tonight, the Geauga Lyric Theater Guild in Chardon proudly presents The Odd Couple: Female Version.

 

Not every classic can be so in touch with its feminine side. Try to imagine John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men with a Lita instead of a Lenny, or Earnest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea in drag. 

 

"This play works," notes director Tina Burgett-Krause, who is at the helm of the GLTG production.  "In fact, The Odd Couple: Female Version is not so much a female-based remake of the original as it is a unique play all its own.  It explores the dynamic of divorce from a woman's perspective, which is a different animal than that experienced by men, and really hits home."

 

Maureen Tanner plays Florence, the Felix equivalent, and Linda Fundis plays the messy Olive.  Rounding out the cast of poker buddies who, in this rendition, play the board game Trivial Pursuit, are Amy Pelleg as Mickey, Kate Wright as Sylvie, Marylin Young as Renee, and Stefani Rose as Vera.  Unlike their male counterparts, playing the game is secondary to talking and spending time together.  The up-stairs neighbors, Monolo and Jesus, are portrayed by Larry Solomon and Michael Green.

 

As if this version did not take enough creative liberties with the original work, director Burgett-Krause set her production in modern times rather than the 1980s.  She also decided to make the character Vera very pregnant.

 

"The reason for the modern rendering," says Burgett-Krause, "is to create a more truthful depiction of what happens when a bunch of contemporary girlfriends with different backgrounds and priorities get together for an evening.  The reason for Vera being pregnant is to further separate this version from the original.  Plus, a pregnant Vera is absolutely hilarious to watch on stage." 

 

Details

 

What:              The Odd Couple: The Female Version.

When:            Today through May 24 (8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays).  

Where:           Geauga Theater, 101 Water Street, Chardon.

Tickets:           $10 to $12

Info:                440-286-2255 or www.geugatheater.org.

 
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