Ten years ago, The Millbrook Community Players, Inc. opened its inaugural season with Neil Simon's The Odd Couple at the Robinson Springs United Methodist Church. Now housed at the nearby old Robinson Springs Elementary School, their current production of The Odd Couple boasts a cast of veteran actors, several of them reprising roles they played in 2007.
It seems that Simon's works never go out of style: The Odd Couple [1965] is the fourth Simon production to hit the River Region since February -- Fools at Faulkner University, Brighton Beach Memoirs at Prattville's Way Off Broadway Theatre, and Last of the Red Hot Lovers at the Wetumpka Depot. His popularity stems in part from his likable and decent characters [imperfect as they are], as well as his witty dialogue replete with zingers and snappy one-liners.
The Odd Couple is most familiar from the successful 1970-1975 television sitcom of the same name, so there are built in expectations of seeing conflicts between good friends -- the easygoing and sloppy Oscar Madison [John Chain] and his unexpected housemate, the uptight neat-freak Felix Unger [Roger Humber].
When Felix arrives late to the weekly poker game at Oscar's 8-room Manhattan apartment [at $240 a month, a probably rent-controlled bargain even in 1965, when cigarettes went for .38-cents a pack and newspapers cost a dime], the motley crew of poker buddies are all concerned for their friend. Felix reluctantly tells them about his upcoming divorce, and Oscar generously offers to take him in as a temporary housemate. Longtime friendships are put to the test, and disaster is predictably on its way.
Of course, Felix wants to be helpful, and at first everyone is happy that his cooking outshines Oscar's and his tidying-up is a blessing; but things get out of hand as Felix's obsessions with cleanliness and deadlines destroy their camaraderie. Roy [Wes Meyer], Speed [Bill Rauch], Murray [Mark McGuire], and Vinnie [John Collier] have numerous fallings-out, but Oscar eventually reaches a breaking point when his plans for him and Felix to double-date the Pigeon sisters -- Gwendolyn [Karla McGhee] and Cecily [Rae Ann Collier] -- ends catastrophically.
The play is really about friendship more than anything else: male-bonding over poker, cigars, booze, and bad food; friends who tolerate each others' extreme idiosyncrasies, even friendships between divorced husbands and wives. -- Both Oscar and Felix are devoted to their families [Oscar's sincere phone conversations with his ex-wife show a genter side of his otherwise brusque demeanor, and Felix's declarations of still loving his soon-to-be ex-wife can soften even the hardest hearts].
Directors Susan Chain and Stephanie McGuire have an acting ensemble who appear comfortable in their respective roles and with one another. But some static movement and unclear articulation get in the way of Simon's witty script. [Perhaps the unfortunately small audience had an effect on their performances; greater numbers responses would add to a lively interaction between actors and audience.]
Nonetheless, this production of The Odd Couple delivers on the playwright's intentions, garners some laugh-out-loud moments, and sends a gentle reminder that friendship is important to everyone.
