Verbal fisticuffs more of a slap fight in female 'Odd Couple'

Well, it’s intriguing. And sometimes funny. In fact, the audience at last Saturday night’s performance laughed often and heartily at the Hampton Theatre Company production of Neil Simon’s 1985 female version of his 1968 money mountain, “The Odd Couple.”

But for this reviewer, the verbal fisticuffs between the mismatched Oscar and Felix don’t make the trip to Olive and Florence without losing quite a bit of their punch. The opening poker game in the male version, with its cigar smoke and whiskey, loses something in the translation into a gathering of Trivial Pursuit players with one smoker and, I think, diet soda. The confrontations between O and F become shrill rather than bombastic, and the cleaning up of one woman’s apartment by another woman has somehow less comic effect than the transformation from clutter to class in men’s quarters. And finally, the culminating hysteria in the plot seems to lose some of its edge (if not its high pitch) when given over to the expression of women rather than men.

Well, the rewrite was the playwright’s conceit when he agreed to recast the original into a suitable gender transfer, 20 years after his original and some years after he’d paid off several mortgages and bought several million dollars worth of properties from the incomes generated by the original, a movie version, a TV version, a TV series, and an animated cartoon version. And so, when the Broadway version opened in the 1980s, the producers wisely starred two bombshells, Rita Moreno and Sally Struthers, as the leads.

To be fair and positive, Mr. Simon also changed the roles of the two upstairs British Pigeon sisters into two gleefully written Spanish brothers, Manolo and Jesus Costazuela—a couple of satirically comic characters who are as sure-fire hysterical as Mr. Simon probably partially wrote when he was a member of Sid Caesar’s stable of comic writers for “Your Show of Shows.” The two wacky brothers bolster the second act of the redone “Odd Couple” mightily.

And to be equally fair, the current HTC cast is game and likable. Frances Sherman, Lara Bowen, Jessica Howard, and a very convincing and engaging Kristin Davey are the Trivial Pursuers, and carry their weight lightly.

As the Costalueza brothers, Edward Kassar and Scott Wilson are belly-laugh hilarious. Given some of the best comic lines of the play, they deliver them with high-energy electricity. Costumed and acting as burlesque Spaniards, they infuse the proceedings with fire and life, and are missed when they exit.

As the two fighters for their disparate lifestyles, Flo Federman and Pam Kern are interesting, carrying their roles of Olive Madison and Florence Unger, respectively, with convincing energy. It’s not their fault that the plot forces them into somewhat annoying shrillness, and they convey the obligatory happy ending with real warmth.

George A. Loizides’s direction is brisk and bright. Sean Marbury’s set has his own touch and is substantial and detailed and as right as the sets his late father, Peter Marbury, created as a trademark of the Hampton Theatre Company productions for 23 years. It is altogether fitting that there will be a memorial service for Peter Marbury at the Quogue Community Hall on Saturday, June 6, at noon.

Teresa LeBrun’s costumes are attractive, and Sebastian Paczynki’s lighting is enhancing.

The HTC production of the female version of “The Odd Couple” continues through June 14 on Thursday through Saturday at 8 and Sunday afternoons at 2:30. For reservations or ticket information, call 866-811-4111 or 653-8955, or visit www.hamptontheatre.org.