Timing is Everything
Reviewed
1/1/06
by Neil Simon
Directed by Claude File
Arizona Jewish Theatre Company
Viad Playhouse on the Park, Phoenix
(602) 264-0402
December 31st, 2005 - January 15th, 2006
$26.00 - $30.00 ($7 Student Rush half hour before curtain)
Discount tickets may be available at
Why does Neil Simon like to spoil the nest? It’s inevitable that small companies will “update” a classic like The Odd Couple with cell phones, contemporary references, and modern dress in an attempt to keep it “fresh,” but Simon has now messed with this script on two separate occasions. First, he rewrote it to gender switch: Felicia and Olive. Can two divorced women share an apartment without driving each other crazy? Does Trivial Pursuit equal Poker? Now he has brought Felix, Oscar, their poker buddies and the upstairs sisters into the 21st century. He has mixed in some elements of the female version (the Pigeon Sisters have been morphed into the female’s Spaniards), included cell phones, voiced the always suspected possibility of Felix’s fey leanings, and Murray the cop is now Murray the bike cop. Does it work? Does it need to? Won’t everybody flock to another Simon comedy? There must be something to him, since there are not one but two productions of this show currently running in the valley.
But I committed a double faux pas in critiquing Arizona
Jewish Theatre Company’s production. Hesitations about Simon
rewriting Simon are supplemented by the shortsightedness of my seeing the
show at the Sunday matinee after the gala opening night on New Year’s
Eve. Matinees are generally low energy events, but imagine acting with
a champagne hangover. That’s the only way I can explain two of the
valley’s acting legends, Bob Sorenson and Jon
Gentry, trying to be funny but only becoming trying. I can’t
believe that this much talent, directed by the veteran Claude File,
and supported by the likes of Ken Love, Ben Tyler, Bruce
Halperin, Steven Scally, Athena Reiss,
and Lindsey Marlin can consistently slip up throughout
a run as often as they did that Sunday afternoon.
Right?
Almost none of the changes to the script make that much of a difference. Moving the sisters from Britain to Spain has allowed for the malapropism jokes of the female version to remain, which is a wash. Putting Tyler in bicycle cop shorts is maybe good for a chuckle. What was funny about the original is still funny here; the additions feel extraneous.
No, this play flies or falls based on the top billing. Who doesn’t love the idea of seeing Sorenson and Gentry, Gentry and Sorenson, top-notch comedians at the top of their game, circling each other as Simon’s greatest comedic duo. Sorenson takes his Oscar down a notch, a laid back slob with a higher tolerance point than others have chosen. This should balance with Gentry’s trademark edginess in his creation of Felix, but this is where things seem to slip. File has included some business that should pop, but instead fizzled in Gentry’s hands. Like a slugger pressing for a home run but swinging and missing, Gentry went through the motions and facial expressions that should work, but for some reason they didn’t pay off. One misfire led to another, and while many of the punch lines clicked, especially among the more connected poker buddies, some of the gags bombed. As the clinkers stacked up, you could see Gentry losing his timing. I felt bad for him. Call me a hopeless optimist, but I know about the chances of catching an off-performance, and I assume that Gentry and Sorenson are professionals who can find the connection that I did not see on this drowsy Sunday.
Thom Gilseth’s off-center box set is a little more chipper than bachelor-like, but it has been dressed by Mavis Gilseth with a few subtle touches that I appreciate and encourage you to locate. Jeff Brown’s lighting is rather generic and unmemorable, but Gail Wolfenden-Steib’s costumes are a straight flush. I found little things about Bill Osborne’s sound choices annoying, such as the cell phone ring that sounded an awful lot like a regular phone, but most are effective.
