By Ashley Bradley/ne news editor
NE Campus theater students show how crazy women can be in the female version of The Odd Couple.
The original version of the play, written by Neil Simon, was about two male roommates completely different from each other.
The play made its debut on Broadway in 1965 and then was adapted for movie screens in 1968.
Simon later revised the piece in 1985 and called it The Female Odd Couple.
“That’s what the whole play is about. Women are crazy,” said play director and drama instructor Susan Polster.
Like Simon’s revised version, the NE play focuses on a cast of six women and two men and what happens when two of the women become roommates.
Polster said the six women in the cast must emphasize every action to portray just how crazy the characters are.
Stage manager Brandon Wimmer said the storyline is similar to the original Odd Couple, but from a female point of view.
“The play is written with feminist ideals,” he said. “It’s a complete modernization.”
The play starts out with the women playing Trivial Pursuit when Florence, one of the main characters, tells the group her husband has left her. Though they have two children, he just can’t stand living with her anymore.
“My character is a crisis-maker,” said Heather Biondini, who plays Florence. “He is tired of [her] being compulsive.”
After Florence tells the women she is suicidal, Olive, the other main character, offers Florence a room in her apartment.
Once they begin to live together, they realize their personalities aren’t the same.
Olive is messy and laid-back while Florence is tidy and high-maintenance.
“That’s when the real conflict begins because they realize their personalities clash,” said Elizabeth Price, who plays Olive.
Though the play portrays the women as insane, it also studies the friendship they share with each other. The group of girls who get together and play Trivial Pursuit have been friends since high school and are all different.
“Girlfriends will understand what we’re talking about,” Price said. “Though we’re all extremely different, we still stay friends, but it does create conflict.”
The play also displays how women band together against men. In one scene, the women in the cast join in a ballad singing Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, a minor change from Simon’s version. Because it was written in the ’80s, he originally used Big Girls Don’t Cry by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
All of the characters’ dialogue proves this piece is a comedy.
“Students will definitely appreciate the sarcasm and sexual innuendos,” Price said.
During a recent rehearsal, cast members had a hard time keeping a straight face because the context and body language is so over-the-top.
“This is a sitcom,” Polster said. “We should have a laugh track, but we don’t. We instead have to make them, the audience, laugh.”
The Odd Couple plays at 8 p.m. Dec. 2-5 in the NE Playhouse with a 2 p.m. matinee Dec. 5. Tickets are free for all TCC students, faculty and staff, $3 for other students and seniors, and $6 for general public. To make reservations, call 817-515-6687 or e-mail neplayhouse@tccd.edu.
