EVERYTHING ODD IS NEW AGAIN
Before ABC-TV made 114 episodes of the 1970-1975 sit-com The Odd Couple starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugma), there was the movie starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in 1968. But all of that followed the original Neil Simon play by the same name, which was a huge Broadway hit in 1965.
The premise is that Felix’s wife, sick of his finicky ways and obsessive neatness, casts him out with no place to go. This leads him to the home of his old buddy Oscar, a sloppy, cigar-smoking, womanizing divorcee, who offers to put him up. The two bump heads on every occasion, as the habits of each drive the other bonkers. As the classic TV opening asks, “Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?” And therein lies the fun.
Over the years, remakes have played with variations on the premise such as, featuring a black Oscar and Felix (The New Odd Couple on ABC-TV in 1982), The Female Odd Couple on Broadway (nearly 300 performances in 1985-1986), and even the animated The Oddball Couple, featuring neat cat and messy dog in 1975. With such longevity of the character appeal, clearly, these two opposites touched a generation and still do today.
For that reason, Artistic Director Phil Johnson wanted to bring back this gem all these years later, but with a slightly different twist, casting two of San Diego’s most celebrated actresses, Melinda Gilb as Felix and Sam Ginn as Oscar. As compared to the aforementioned The Female Odd Couple, the roles aren’t being reworked as in 1985 for Sally Struthers as Florence (Felix) and Rita Moreno as Olive (Oscar). In Roustabouts’ reading , Melinda and Sam are playing men. What’s more, all of the roles are cast by opposite gender, so we have women playing all of their poker buddies and two men playing the flirty Pidgeon sisters, Gwendolyn and Cecily (played by Eliott Goretsky and Daren Scott, respectively). It sounds a bit contrived, but actually ends up being quite fun to watch, especially with the sister’s lines actually being funnier when delivered by two men camping it up. An irony to genderbending the roles is that ABC changed the intro to the TV show after a few seasons to tell the story, before every single episode, of how the two men came to live together; they did this specifically to state, for every possible new viewer, that the men are definitely divorcés; that way, no one would question their masculinity or orientation. In an interview many years later, Jack Klugman stated that he hated that intro because of its homophobic concerns.
The lead casting by Roustabouts is ideal; the moment I heard who was in the two lead roles, I knew I wanted to see this, even as a reading rather than fully staged. Melinda Gilb has been creating strong characters on San Diego stages for decades, first capturing this reviewer’s appreciations way back in 1994’s Dixie Highway as well as re-delighting me (in my second-ever Stage and Cinema review) at the much-missed San Diego Rep’s Walter Cronkite is Dead in 2011. Sam Ginn is a natural clown, who added so much to last year’s Roustabouts’ offering Hand of God. Here, she brings that big energy to exaggerating Oscar’s flaws, frustrations, and, deep-down bigheartedness.
There’s only one more night to see the Roustabouts gang bring this nearly sixty-year-old show back to life. It’s a great chance for easy, well-deserved laughs.
The Odd Couple
The Roustabouts Theatre Company
Scripps Ranch Theatre, 9783 Avenue of Nations in San Diego
reviewed on Nov 12, 2024
remaining performances:
Monday Nov 18, 2024 at 7:30pm
for tickets, call 619.728.7820 or visit Roustabouts