Word: odd
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Odd Couple...
...must assume that when Neil Simon wrote a female version of his classic play, The Odd Couple, he had something in mind other than creating more roles for women (commendable as such a goal might be). The implication surely is that a female version would express something that the male version could not, that females possess a unique voice that would make a reworking of the play subtly different. If such was Simon's intent, then he was doomed to failure; if such was not his intent, it is hard to see what the point of this exercise...
...doesn't have to have grown up in Yonkers or Brighton Beach to find the humor, the plays translate perfectly beyond the confines of setting. Simon took his experiences, and made them all of our experiences. In this female verson of The Odd Couple, that generality has deteriorated into a stereotyping which makes the rest of the play hollow...
After all is said and done, The Odd Couple, the female version, is not a bad play, yet it leaves one aching for all that it could have been. Forced jokes about pregnancy and little speeches about women's lib are nothing more than tokens if they are spoken by the same cliched female characters we have become accustomed to. In spite of Jones' solid performance and the riotous supporting cast, director Kwatinetz fails to overcome the limitations ill-thought conception...
...worse. Until last week the most serious charges against him involved his actions after the apparent suicide last year of White House lawyer Vincent Foster, when Nussbaum interfered in investigators' attempts to examine Foster's office and removed some records, including files pertaining to Whitewater. It was an odd notion of propriety for a man who did his first stint in Washington on the staff of the House Watergate committee...