One reason certain Neil Simon comedies can be performed season after season without boring us is that Simon is the Jane Austen of modern New York conversation: He understands dialogue. And when a group of seasoned actors, like those currently at Theater J, gather to perform Simon’s “The Odd Couple,” the art of conversation takes over, wooing the audience with its quick, sharp-witted patter.
Of course, the plot makes “The Odd Couple” a classic, too. Who can resist being amused as these totally opposite types — the slovenly Oscar and the orderly Felix — try to co-exist peacefully for three weeks? Simon mines that impossibility for all it’s worth.
In the Theater J production, Oscar is portrayed with appropriate messiness by Rick Foucheux. Foucheux gives a convincing performance of a man who couldn’t care less about how his apartment looks, how his food tastes or even whether it’s served on a clean dish.
Oscar’s best friend is the fanatically precise Felix (J. Fred Shiffman). Shiffman paints an entertaining portrait of the neat-freak who loves to clean and cook and is horrified when his poker buddies don’t put their beer in glasses and don’t think to use coasters under those glasses.
When Felix’s wife decides to divorce him, Felix is destroyed: His wife, children and house were his life, and now he has nowhere to go. Out of concern for him, Oscar decides to take Felix in until he can think clearly. It isn’t long before Felix’s obsessive need for cleanliness makes Oscar’s life pure misery.
The play takes place in Oscar’s living room, where every Friday night he and his buddies gather to play poker. Delaney Williams is amusing as Murray, the cop, who is genuinely worried about Felix when he is late one poker night. Williams’ Murray is a man obsessed by the horrors he sees every day.
Roy, Oscar’s accountant, is mortally offended by the “Puretron” air filter Felix imports to clean the air in Oscar’s home; he’s nicely portrayed by Paul Morella. The poker gang is rounded out by Vinnie (Michael Willis), who is always leaving town, and Speed (Marcus Kyd).
There are two ditzy British women who live upstairs in Oscar’s apartment and who drop in for a disastrous dinner one night. Lise Bruneau plays Gwendolyn, the older sister, and Helen Pafumi plays Cecily, the younger sister. Both excellent actors, Bruneau and Pafumi provide giddy relief from the Oscar/Felix drama with their hysterical laughter at everything Oscar says — and hysterical tears as they get to know and love Felix.
This “Odd Couple” is skillfully directed by Jerry Whiddon, who doesn’t try to update the script. It starts out at 10:30 p.m. on a hot summer night in New York in 1965. Misha Kachman’s set captures the era perfectly in the furniture and art of Oscar’s apartment.
But the real appeal of Kachman’s set is the living room’s mess and transformation. In Act I, there are beer and Coke bottles everywhere, Venetian blinds unevenly drawn up, sports magazines on the floor — everything is a mirror of the lovable disorder that inhabits Oscar’s soul. At the beginning of Act II, after Felix has moved in, everything is spotless: The Venetian blinds are neat, the ashtrays clean, the magazines stacked neatly.
But “The Odd Couple” is not about who wins the “how to live” war. In Theater J’s droll production, the play is a knowing comment on friendship and how it is sustained under extreme stress. As Oscar and Felix put up with each other, they poignantly demonstrate how men can bond — even while they drive each other crazy.
