The Odd Couple by Neil Simon: the incompatible roommates are back again almost as amusing as before!

Photo: Wendy Wagner

Neil Simon’s 50-year-old comedy portraying the myriad ways in which incompatible roommates can drive each other crazy is almost as amusing as it was before Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon inhabited the characters of the slobbish Oscar Madison and the OCD neat freak Felix Ungar in the 1968 movie version.

Considering that the concept was also a TV series featuring the odd pairing, as well as numerous stage versions over the years, yet another view of Oscar and Felix poses a considerable challenge.

In the current Kanata Theatre production, directed and designed by Jim Clarke and Ron Gardner, Bernie Horton offers a suitably slobbish Oscar. Laid back and smiling, even when losing in the weekly poker game, his anger with Felix when he finally tosses him out provides a fine contrast, but some glimpses of that hard edge early on would have made for a more rounded characterization.

Stavros Sakiadis is appropriately fussy and neurotic as Felix, giving a clear idea of why his wife could no longer take his obsessive perfectionism. Because he presents Felix as slightly too mannered on occasions, there is a periodic blurring of Simon’s intent: that mismatched couples have little to do with sexuality.

The object of the guys at the poker games, drinking, smoking and uncouth, is to deliver a portrait of redneck boys’ night out. The poker scenes are an ideal place for Simon’s famous one-liners — most of which are lost or thrown away in the very solemn, grindingly slow opening scene at the card table.

The Pigeon sisters from the upstairs apartment are both Oscar’s hope for a little romance and the catalyst for his final confrontation with Felix. Liz Szucs (despite some over pronunciation in trying to deliver an English accent) and Amy Osborne deliver perky characterizations and, with Sakiadis, present an extremely well-timed set of awkward exchanges before all three collapse in tears.

In general, the Kanata Theatre production of The Odd Couple, while attractive to view and effective in parts, is too patchy to maximize the value of Simon’s script.

The Odd Couple continues at Kanata Theatre to April 2.

Directors and designers: Jim Clarke and Ron Gardner

Costumes: Kathryn Clarke

Sound: Mike Bosnich

Lighting: Evan Nearing

Cast:

Speed……………………………….Ron Miller

Murray……………………………..Ivo Mokros

Roy…………………………………Bruce Rayfuse

Vinnie………………………………Ric O’Dell

Oscar Madison……………………..Bernie Horton

Felix Ungar…………………………Stavros Sakiadis

Gwendolyn Pigeon………………….Liz Szucs

Cecily Pigeon……………………….Amy Osborne.