The new production of The Odd Couple, with Nathan Lane as the slob and Matthew Broderick as the neat freak, opened last Thursday evening on Broadway. Just for the sheer "event" of it all, I would have liked to be there for the opening, especially at the end when Mr. Lane interrupted the curtain ovation to say, "Oh yes, there's somebody here you should meet" and brought out Neil Simon. But I find myself curiously uninterested in jumping on a plane and going back to see subsequent performances. Even if someone gave me tickets — which no one's gonna do because they're sold out and they go for a fort-yoon on eBay — I'm not sure I'd be interested.
It isn't just that the reviews are decidedly mixed. Critics often differ but never so much as when they're writing about a show they're helpless to impact in any way. It's that I feel like I've already seen it. I know the play about as well as I know my Social Security number and I can imagine exactly what Mssrs. Lane and Broderick are doing with it. If this production was local to me and reasonably-priced, sure. I'd go and I'm sure I'd be joyously entertained. But theater sometimes becomes a big hassle, what with advance planning and securing tickets and physically getting there and…I dunno. This one just struck me as not worth the effort…not that they'll suffer one bit for the lack of my patronage.
I've seen The Odd Couple (I'm guessing) twenty times. In a live theatrical production, I mean. The movie, I've seen more times than I can imagine. But I've sat in theaters and seen live performers yell about spaghetti vs. linguini on many, many occasions — in productions professional and amateur, starring folks you've heard of and folks you haven't. I've seen it rewritten by Mr. Simon for women and rewritten by Mr. Simon just for the hell of it. It really is bulletproof but that doesn't mean everyone should take a shot at it.