The Northern Light

Issue date: 7/29/08 Section: A & E

Media Credit: Brianna Dym Patrick Killoran (far left), Mick Lenehan (left), Thomas Jacobs (right), and Nate Benson (far right) take part in one of Cyrano's performances "The Odd Couple." The play house is performing the male and femaile versions of the classic play. [Click to enlarge]

In 1965 Neil Simon wrote and produced perhaps his most successful play: The Odd Couple. It ran for 966 performances, won several Tony Awards including Best Play, and was also adapted into a movie as well as a long-lived television show.

It is the perfect comedic set-up: a neat-freak hypochondriac becomes roommates with a slovenly friend after both of their recent divorces.

The popularity of the show just could not die. There were sequels for both the film and the television series and there was even a cartoon spin-off with a cat and a dog living together.

Yet, what is little known is that Neil Simon himself revised the play in 1985. This time he wrote the play with females in mind.

Felix Unger would become Florence and Oscar Madison would become Olive as the entire cast changed in the updated version. Though it isn't a matter of simply changing the characters names or sexes. Simon tried to approach the subject from the female perspective.

It is these changes that drew local Director Lainie Dreas to produce the play once more.

"My generation grew up on the Odd Couple TV show," Dreas said. "But I really wanted to see the juxtaposition of the female version versus the male version."

It is for this reason that she is producing not one, but both versions of the play at the same time at Cyrano's starting in August.

"I just really liked the idea of doing both of them, of having two really strong casts and then seeing how the shows are alike and also how they're very different," Dreas said.

And there are two very strong casts here. Dreas has pooled together a great team of talent that brings these characters to life in both versions. Yet this is where the concept becomes even more intriguing.

Continued...

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