Students learn life lessons from stage
Montville High presents a musical adaptation of female ‘Odd Couple’
Montville — When she was a college theater student, Montville High School English teacher Susan Walsh used to scoff at playwright Neil Simon.
“I used to look at (his plays) and go, ‘ugh,’” Walsh said.
But as she’s grown older, she said, she has come to see that Simon’s plays have universal themes.
That goes for his 1965 Broadway production of “The Odd Couple,” which the playwright revised 20 years later to feature two female leads.
Walsh is directing the Montville High School Drama Club’s musical adaptation of the play in three performances at 7 p.m. on Dec. 3, 4 and 5 at the school.
Simon rewrote the play — originally featuring the uptight Felix Unger and laid-back Oscar Madison as mismatched roommates — as 1985’s “The Odd Couple (Female Version).”
Instead of Felix and Oscar, audiences get Florence and Olive. Rather than poker, the main characters play Trivial Pursuit. Instead of the Pigeon sisters, a pair of Spanish brothers show up for dinner.
Walsh said the play reminded her of how often she has seen her female students drift away from their friends after graduation.
“They lose track of them going to college, and getting jobs and moving away,” she said.
“If I could give them anything, it would be for them to treasure their friendships throughout the years. That’s really where your memories are made.”
The cast, starring seniors Meghan Canastar and Eleanor Page as Olive and Florence, was quick to adapt, Walsh said.
“I have strong female students in the drama club, and I really wanted a vehicle for them to really shine in,” she said. “They really challenged themselves and let themselves go physically and emotionally.”
Canastar, 17, said she had to work on her New York accent to play Olive. But the biggest challenge was relating to the middle-aged character.
“Just putting on the accent and having the clothes doesn’t really make the character,” she said. “I kind of imagined myself in 30 years, and how I would act.”
Page, also 17, said she saw herself in Florence’s shoes.
“It took me a while to find the right way to walk and talk like Florence, but once I finally realized that I was similar to her in many ways, everything clicked and I immediately found my character,” she said in an email. “Even though I can’t connect directly to losing a husband and moving in with a friend, it was easy to think about being in that situation and bring the right emotions forward when playing Florence.”
Shaun Radgowski, a Montville High senior and the stage manager for the production, has adapted the play as a musical by incorporating songs by musicians like Aretha Franklin, Bill Haley and his Comets and The Ronettes.
“I pulled from the time period, and I thought about the way that these women grew up in the ’60s and ’70s,” he said.
Radgowski said he was inspired by a theme that must hit home for a cast that includes several Montville High seniors — growing up.
“The idea behind the show (is) these women who are figuring out what it means to be adults, and what it means to be individuals and their own people in the world,” he said.
That’s exactly what Walsh was thinking when she chose the play, she said.
“It’s about loneliness, and reaching out to others and really connecting,” she said. “It’s funny and it’s human and it’s poignant.”
Tickets will be sold at the door at $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors.