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Saturday, December 28, 2002

By Richard E. Rauh

Much has happened to Neil Simon's 1965 play "The Odd Couple": It was a Broadway hit, a film with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, a TV series with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall.

In the 1980s, Simon decided to do major surgery on his play. The irascible slob Oscar Madison became in the new female version an equally unkempt (although not in this production) Olive Madison. And Oscar's obsessive-compulsive friend Felix Unger turned into the fastidious Florence Unger, with all of Felix's neuroses intact.

	"The Odd Couple, The Female Version" WHERE: Byham Theater, Downtown. WHEN: 2 and 8 p.m. today and tomorrow. TICKETS: $45-$35. 412-456-6666.

Along the way, too, Oscar's poker-playing buddies became a chatty bunch of women playing Trivial Pursuit, and the legendary Pigeon sisters, Cecily and Gwendolyn, were transformed into happy-go-lucky Spanish brothers named Jesus and Manolo, complete with sexy body language and a torrent of fractured English.

Time has not been particularly kind to the female version. What was funny before -- Felix as the perfect housewife, roaming the apartment looking for stray dirt or endlessly spraying the air -- doesn't seem as funny when Florence does it. And while some of the laughs still work -- especially when the Spanish brothers are on stage -- the switch mostly to female characters nowadays seems tame.

Under Joel Paley's direction, the production, now at the Byham Theater with co-stars Barbara Eden and Rita McKenzie, is oddly muted, lacking pacing and punch. This is especially true of the opening scene in which the actors in the Trivial Pursuit game need to pick up their cues and the pacing of the show. By Act 2, the show finally comes to life, as the actors begin to let go and have some fun with the play.

All of the Trivial Pursuit ladies work well together. But Mary Pat Gleason and Shirley Prestia are particularly fine and know what comic timing is all about. Equally funny is Georgia Engel, who underplays to perfection, a skill she honed on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

As Olive, McKenzie has many fine scenes, but she could be a brassier, feistier Olive. And she needs to live in an apartment that has a grungy feel to it. Ditto for her clothing. Shouldn't she look like she's been living in the same clothes for days and doesn't care?

Eden makes a chic and proper character out of Florence, turning her into the squeaky clean housewife of the year. But she, too, needs to fin3 that manic quality in Florence that makes her so obsessive.

Finally, the Spanish brothers, whom Olive recruits as dates for her and Florence, nearly steal the show. They bring a much-needed shot of energy to the production, and their comic interactions, delightfully played by David Castro and Larry Thomas (the soup Nazi from "Seinfeld"), are worth the price of admission.

There are plenty of yuks in this show. But the actors need to find the craziness in their situations. Then at last the fun can begin.

Richard E. Rauh is a freelance critic for the Post-Gazette.