My pal Ken Levine and I are both still mourning the passing of Neil Simon and we agree completely on his greatness and influence. So I was intrigued when Ken said this on his must-read blog…
Back in the '70s when The Odd Couple TV series was popular, there was an LA production at the (now defunct) Shubert Theatre of the original play with the TV cast in the roles. So Tony Randall was Felix and Jack Klugman was Oscar, etc. It brought down the house. And as I was watching it I thought to myself, "Wow, this is the best episode of The Odd Couple ever!"
I saw that production and I was sitting there thinking, "Wow, this is awful. Maybe we'll leave at intermission."
The odds are pretty good that Ken and I were not there on the same night because the house when I was there was definitely not being brought down. My date and I wound up not leaving at intermission but many did. In no particular order, there were three (maybe four) things wrong with what we saw…
- The Shubert Theater (still defunct) seated 2,100 people and its stage was built to accommodate shows like Evita and A Chorus Line, both of which I also saw there. (Name-Dropping Aside: My friend Valerie Perri, who I just mentioned here, had the title role in Evita there. A lovely dancer named Charlene Ryan was one of the stars of A Chorus Line at the Shubert. Ms. Ryan is now Mrs. Aragonés, having married my collaborator Sergio.) Anyway, the place was too big for the seven-character, one-set Odd Couple.
- The actors for The Odd Couple were poorly-miked or maybe the sound system was just badly configured. Whatever the reason, my date had to keep turning to me and asking me, "What did he say?" And I only knew because I knew the play by heart. I couldn't make out a lot of what was said either. The best actors in the world are kind of useless when you can't hear them.
- Tony Randall and Jack Klugman were among the best actors in the world but they didn't act like it that night. Maybe it was because their lines weren't evoking the expected responses but they were rushing and mugging and not delivering a performance in keeping with their reputations.
- And this is the "maybe." Maybe Ken had better seats.
I am not posting this to argue that he was wrong. I'm assuming we are both right about the particular performances we attended. On Ken's visit, the sound was probably fine and the cast found its footing and worked the material to its full potential. The Shubert was probably the same-sized monster the night Ken went but a real good play can even fill up the wrong size stage. For what it's worth, Dan Sullivan (the critic for the L.A. Times) wrote in his review of 12/4/75…
The annoyances of The Odd Couple at the Shubert include the crass canned music between the acts, the muddled crosstalk in the first poker-playing scene and the fact that the theater is miles too big for the play. The splendor of The Odd Couple is a dazzling comedy performance by Tony Randall, warmly supported by Jack Klugman.
So the Times critic agreed with me the place was too big and he had some trouble understanding the actors in the first scene…but he otherwise saw what Ken saw. I wish I had. This is something we should all keep in mind when we go to live performances. I have directed a grand total of one play — a sadly under-rehearsed (because there wasn't ample time) production of Mr. Simon's California Suite. Some nights, it was pretty good and some nights, it was not.
One of the cast members had a boy friend who came to most of the performances and after one in the "not pretty good" category, he came backstage and asked me, "What the hell happened?" Same actors, same stage, same lines, not a single laugh. All I could tell him was, "It was Wednesday, I guess." Perhaps that was the problem with The Odd Couple at the Shubert, too.