April 17, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

‘Couple’ not only Odd, but also boring and annoying
by CLARK GROOME

Felix and Oscar. Everyone knows them. They are the center of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. Felix is compulsively neat. Oscar is a slob. They are both tough to live with. Their wives have thrown them out. They end up sharing an apartment.

For all the popularity of The Odd Couple on stage (with Art Carney as Felix and Walter Matthau as Oscar), on film (Jack Lemmon as Felix, Matthau repeating his Broadway role as Oscar) and on TV (Tony Randall as Felix, Jack Klugman as Oscar), the play is really a one-trick pony.

That gag, of course, is the conflict between the obsessive Felix and the slovenly Oscar. In order to make it work, the actors playing the two have to be believable characters who inhabit their characteristics. If they are not, as is the case in the Walnut Street Theatre’s production that runs through April 27, they can be boring, annoying or, which is the case here, both.

The Walnut’s production, which is produced in association with Florida’s New Vista Theatre Company, stars Avi Hoffman, New Vista’s producing artistic director, as Oscar and Gary Marachek as Felix. Neither is believable.

I don’t know whether the fault with their performances is due to their own capabilities or to Bill Van Horn’s direction. Whatever the case, both are so over the top — at least in Act I, which was all I saw — that what you get are actors overacting and creating characters that are clearly mechanical inventions of craft rather than honest revelations of character. You never get to know the two guys who clearly need a friend and thus put up with their conflicting idiosyncrasies to prove their humanity.

The production’s supporting characters, all members of Oscar’s weekly poker game, were much better and much funnier than the principals. Harry Philiboisan, Michael Serratore, David Volin and Jeffrey Coon made up the group, and they were fine.

The physical production, especially the soundtrack created by sound designer Traci Almeida, was quite good. The other good designers were Ian T. Almeida (set), Paula Villar (costumes) and Shelley Hicklin (lighting).

The Walnut has generally done a very good job with the other Neil Simon plays it has offered over the last several seasons. Alas, they’ve come acropper on this old chestnut, sending me home early. I left early not because I was angry or annoyed but because I was bored, which to my mind is the greatest sin any production of a Neil Simon play can commit.

For tickets to The Odd Couple, at the Walnut Street Theatre through April 27, call 215-574-3550 or 215-336-1234 or visit www.walnutstreettheatre.org.