RECASTING A CLASSIC
‘The Odd Couple’ comes to Adobe Theater with a female twist
For years, fans asked the playwright Neil Simon to recast “The Odd Couple” with female leads. In 1985 he complied, rewriting the dialogue and replacing Felix and Oscar with Florence and Olive. Simon was able to set his female characters on the path to finding independence from the men in their lives.
The Adobe Theater is producing this estrogen-laced version of Simon’s classic comedy March 1-24.
“All the famous gags are there, even the linguini on the wall,” said director Georgia Athearn.
Simon rewrote the dialogue to orbit around a girlfriend Trivial Pursuit game instead of the guys’ smoke-filled poker game. The famous Pigeon sisters appear, transformed into the Constazuela brothers.
“It’s just as funny as the male version,” Athearn said. Olive “throws her clothes when she gets in and leaves her take-home” out.
A former housewife and mother, Florence is a perfectionist neat freak. She once worked as an accountant, but her husband was her boss.
She interrupts the girls’ happy repartee when her husband kicks her out.
“Florence takes over the apartment to the point of driving Olive crazy,” Athearn said.
“They’re all friends,” she continued. “Olive has a huge apartment. She says, ‘Why don’t you just stay here?’ ”
She’s afraid the devastated Florence will harm herself. But her roommate is compulsively clean, tidy and obsessed with hygiene.
Olive’s easy going outlook on life soon clashes with Florence’s highly strung neurotic tendencies.
The setting reflects the mid-’80s with its big hair and side ponytails. Women were beginning to come into their own.
The game takes place in Olive’s messy apartment. Instead of Walter Matthau’s slob of a sportswriter, Olive is a producer for a sports network. Simon described her as “attractive, divorced, professional.”
When Olive arranges a double date with the Constazuela brothers, the pair’s differences come to a head as sparks fly.
The play stars Stephanie Jones as Olive and Gloria Goodman as Florence. The lineup also features Kristin Herrnstein Cooper, Kymberley Peters, Mary Kay Riley and Jennifer Benoit as the girlfriends. Yannig Morin and Isaac Dean Carrillo play the Constazuela brothers.