Getting excited about The Odd Couple

I'm major-league excited about Trinity Rep's next production, Neil Simon's classic comedy The Odd Couple. My season of Simon was cut short last fall after I saw Brighton Beach Memoirs on Broadway, so this is another chance at bat.

Previews begin April 9 with Brian McEleney as neurotic neatnik Felix Ungar and Fred Sullivan Jr. as slobbish sportswriter Oscar Madison. The Odd Couple runs through May 9.

Here's a clip of artistic director Curt Columbus talking about the play, which was first produced on Broadway in 1965, became a movie in 1968 and a TV series that ran from 1970 to 1975.

In reading it over Columbus, who's directing, says he realized that the play is "a much richer piece about friendship and about masculinity in the mid 20th century in America."



I grew up watching The Odd Couple on TV with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall and Columbus says resident set designer Eugene Lee took that familiarity into account. "It's going to have a really cool 1960s television feel."

In this clip from the Dec. 1 1972, episode Felix and Oscar appear on the game show Password, competing against Betty White, who was married to host Allen Ludden. Watch it to learn something about Abraham Lincoln that I bet you never knew.

How a theatre season comes together

All right, my third post about Trinity Repertory Company's upcoming season. That's some kind of record. But I think this is interesting to theatergoers everywhere.

After reading about Trinity Rep's 2009-2010 lineup of plays (and one musical) I wondered how a company goes about deciding what to put on. Well, my question has been answered. The task falls to artistic director Curt Columbus and associate artistic director Craig Watson. Next year's theme is second chances. Here's some of what they had to say:

Twelfth Night
(This is Trinity Rep's annual selection for its education program, Project Discovery Plus, which alternates Shakespeare with classic American plays.)

Curt: "Thousands of students will see it and host our actors in their classroom workshops. I love what it has to say about second chances! The play fits our company extraordinarily well."

Craig: "It's Shakespeare's best comedy, the one I enjoy the most."

Dead Man's Cell Phone
Curt: "Our audiences loved The Clean House, and Sarah [Ruhl] is a Brown alumna and friend. It’s a great complement to Twelfth Night."

Craig: "Sarah’s work has such lyricism, which rhymes well with Shakespeare."

Cabaret
Craig: "It’s a musical that we can do well with our resident company and students. The second chances theme is strong in Cabaret, but in a very different sense."

Curt: "It’s all about the world in motion, and how we make our way in that world with courage."

Shooting Star
Craig: "Shooting Star is one of those plays which was chosen through serendipity. I was reading plays in the days before Christmas, and I read this new two-hander by Steven Dietz and rather liked it, I saw the possibilities."

Curt: "It’s a warmhearted, generous romantic comedy, with very human details.''

The Odd Couple
Curt: "It's just so good. You know, there were lots of raised eyebrows when we announced Our Town three years ago. People said “Oh, I’ve seen that before, in high school.” Maybe The Odd Couple gets even less respect because it’s a comedy."

Craig: "It’s a very thoughtful and well written play. It stands as an American classic, and we’re proud to do it. Particularly because it was NOT an obvious choice for us! It says something that a lot of people may not expect, having experienced only the TV show, several generations removed from the original story."

The Syringa Tree
Craig: "This piece was written by and has been largely performed by Pamela Gien, about her experience growing up under apartheid in South Africa, leaving, and returning to South Africa after liberation. It’s especially attractive to me because I spent a couple of years working in South Africa right after liberation in the mid-1990s. As a nation, it’s a model for change and second chances, and third and fourth chances, which tends to be overlooked on our continent. Aside from all that, it’s just a beautiful piece of writing."

Curt: "It’s a lovely complement to The Odd Couple, strangely enough. The Odd Couple is a really well-made play. The Syringa Tree is almost a poem, sometimes, monologue or choral piece. It resides in the imagination, whereas The Odd Couple provides all the mechanics, if you will, for the thing itself. It’s a terrific balance, a great way to end the season, as Craig says. A beautiful complement to Cabaret, because it speaks about a second chance, when a second chance seemed impossible."

Trinity Rep's new season: second chances

I love this time of year, when regional theatres announce their shows for the upcoming season. I can only imagine how difficult it must be in this economy to put together a mix of crowd-pleasers and new works that you hope will draw an audience.

Trinity Repertory Company unveiled it's 2009-2010 lineup this week. The theme for the season, according to artistic director Curt Columbus and associate director Craig Watson, is second chances.

Here's what they have to say:

“Starting over and taking up the challenge is something we’re all facing, regardless of ideology,” Watson says. “We wanted a season that people would have fun with – giving us all a second chance, a second wind, with music and laughter,” adds Columbus.

Trinity Rep doesn't usually tackle a lot of musicals, so I'm really looking forward to Kander and Ebb's classic Cabaret. And The Odd Couple, wow. I've seen so many of the movies made from Neil Simon's plays but I've never had a chance to see one on stage. In fact, I only know either of those shows from their film and television incarnations.

I saw Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House a couple years ago and really enjoyed it. She has a good ear for witty dialog and creates some great, quirky characters. I'm hoping Dead Man's Cell Phone will be another insightful look at modern life.

I have to admit that I've never heard of Shooting Star or its playwright, Steven Deitz. But I do love romantic comedies. Likewise, I'm not familiar with Pamela Gien, but the Syringa Tree sounds like a very moving personal story.

As for Twelfth Night, well, after seeing a few of Shakespeare's tragedies in a row, it'll be nice change of pace.

Here's the lineup: (And of course, A Christmas Carol is returning, from Nov. 20 to Dec. 27.)

Cabaret book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb
September 11 – October 11 in the Chace Theater
Berlin, 1931: music, money, and love are there for the taking. Cliff seeks inspiration for his novel. He finds it in Sally Bowles, the Kit Kat Klub’s chanteuse, who charms him into sharing his apartment. The emcee has not one but two ladies to keep him company. The landlady’s found new love with the grocer. Yet outside the cabaret the world is changing: what's in store for Sally and her friends? Cabaret celebrates the indomitable human spirit.

Shooting Star by Steven Dietz
October 16 – November 22 in the Dowling Theater
A young man and woman fell in love in college, and promised each other they’d change the world. Twenty years later, they meet unexpectedly in a snow-bound airport. Sharing stories deep into the night, they discover who they’ve become as they recall who they were. When morning comes, all flights are cleared for departure – what’s the final destination for these two? The author of God’s Country and Lonely Planet gives us that rare thing: a truly smart romantic comedy.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
January 29 – March 7 in the Chace Theater
Shipwrecked, orphaned, separated from her twin brother, disguised as a boy in a hostile country – when Viola thinks things can’t get worse, she falls for her new boss, the Duke. He pines for Olivia, who’s sworn off men – till she met Viola’s male alter-ego. Spurned suitors, servants with delusions of grandeur, and Viola’s big, big love for the Duke – it’s a giddy mess that’ll put someone in the madhouse. Shakespeare’s meditation on love and identity is one of his most nuanced – and funniest – comedies.

Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl
February 19 – March 28 in the Dowling Theater
Why doesn’t he answer that phone?! Jean picks it up, and finds herself holding his legacy in her hand, along with the phone. Think about it: when we leave our bodies, do we live on in our cell phones, iPods, GPS’s, and PDA’s? Do these indispensable tools, these grown-up toys, hold the secrets to the afterlife? From the author of The Clean House, another whimsical comedy about life, death, and love in these modern times – and the connections, real and virtual, holding them together.

The Odd Couple by Neil Simon
April 9 – May 9 in the Chace Theater
Oscar’s wife has left him. Alone in his big apartment on Riverside Drive, his slovenly ways run happily amok. Then, Felix’s wife kicks him out. Concerned about his poker buddy, Oscar takes Felix in, but there’s a problem: Felix is a neat-freak, and his compulsive cleanliness drives Oscar to distraction. What will these woefully, wonderfully mismatched roommates learn from each other? Can they stay together, or is their living situation hopeless? Hilarity ensues in Neil Simon’s beloved touchstone of American comedy.

The Syringa Tree by Pamela Gien
April 30 – May 30 in the Dowling Theater
Growing up under Apartheid, six-year-old Lizzie confronts rules she cannot understand. Why must her nanny keep her daughter hidden? Among twenty-eight characters capturing four generations, she paints an evocative portrait of the abiding love between two families – one black, one white. History’s shocking events unravel, mingled with the resonant rites of passage all families share. As Lizzie comes of age, we experience her sacrifice and liberation, and the bonds which cannot be broken.