Caught in a bad bromance
“The Odd Couple” premiered Friday, April 12, in the Rogers Black Box Theatre in the Stephens Performing Arts Center. Performances will also be held at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 18, and Friday, April 19.
Admission is $7 for students with Bengal ID, $10 for children under 18, $14 for seniors and ISU faculty and $15 for general admission. Groups of ten or more can also get a discounted price of $10 per person. Tickets can be purchased through the Box Office in person, at the Campus Connection Desk in the Pond Student Union Building or online through ISU ticketing.
The play centers around two divorced poker buddies that are down on their luck. One is Oscar Madison, the messy sportswriter that is notoriously bad at poker and behind on his alimony checks. Fellow poker player Felix Ungar, a self-proclaimed neurotic neat freak, gets kicked out of his wife’s house and comes to stay at Oscar’s house.
The action takes place at Oscar’s apartment at Riverside Drive in New York City in 1978.
The opening scene shows the poker friends Speed, Murray, Roy, Vinnie, and Oscar Madison going about business as usual when Murray shows concern for Felix’s absence.
“He hasn’t missed a game in almost two years!” Murray exclaims.
By the time Felix, played by Jesse Arnold, shows up to the poker event, he’s distraught and his friends have already been informed of his impending divorce.
Arnold does a fantastic job portraying Felix’s unbalanced nature. Threatening suicide, looking for attention and getting laughs with his crazy antics, Felix is a comic character.
While Felix, the obsessive compulsive cleaner who never shuts up, is living with Oscar, the slob sports writer, there is obvious tension. They argue like a married couple about money, dinner, women and cleaning around the house.
The highlight of the entire play is Emily Kvamme’s character, Gwendolyn Pigeon. Gwen, an English woman who lives in an upstairs apartment complex, has a roaring, out-there laugh that definitely got the audience’s attention.
Gwendolyn and her sister Cecily, played by Hannah Ballou-Rankin, go on a date with Felix and Oscar, only to find that they both fancy Felix’s basket-case but sensitive attitude.
After the date, tension raises between the odd couple, and Oscar and Felix decide to break off their “bromance.”
The play ends with Oscar and Felix realizing how living together, in a round-about way, improved their lives and that they’ll see each other on poker night.
