A pox on PC-ism.
In Neil Simon's estrogenized Odd Couple, the male, Manhattanite poker players morph into female Trivial Pursuers. Fine. Even dandy. But they don't smoke. Not one deep, lung-destroying drag. What's the marvelous Madison Mess without nicotine stains and cigar stench?
The deft zinger, "Do me a favor, smoke toward New Jersey"? Extinguished. As is much of the tartness of Simon's original, riotous classic.
Was this gender-upender that transsexualizes Oscar and Felix into Olive and Florence secretly rewritten by NYC's No-Puff Daddy mayor, Michael Bloomberg? Hell, why not plunk them down in LA, where the poker/Pursuit pals, rather than choosing between Oscar/Olive's "green sandwiches and brown sandwiches" ("either very new cheese or very old meat"), could snack on leftover sushi?
While Simon, via an undisciplined Theatre in the Valley production, riffs on his own work by reinterpreting it, across town at Las Vegas Little Theatre, playwright Christopher Durang flat-out goofs on Tennessee Williams' Southern-fried heartache in Twisted Tennessee, a spotty but funny double-dip of parody one-acts. The late-night Insomniac Project entry is staged as a comic tonic mere minutes after audiences ride the sobering Streetcar Named Desire.
Of the pair, Twisted twinkles more than Couple connects.
Simon exploited the fairer-sex side of his beloved play/movie/sitcom in 1985, though beyond being motivated by mere curiosity or utter boredom in a perhaps too-prolific career—the man could have gas and fart out a play—I still can't imagine why.
By feminizing the characters, Simon scores the stunt effect, good for some audience interest, but the altered dynamic makes it a lesser work. Call me sexist (Yeah, I know: "You're sexist"), but a cleaning/cooking-obsessed woman isn't as novel and certainly not as funny as a fusspot man, feminism's strides notwithstanding. That flip-flops the friction, positioning Olive's slovenly female in the "freak" slot, yet Simon doesn't completely flip the flop, retaining Florence as comic instigator, so the two types never clash convincingly to create believable comedy.
Simon also insults contemporary audiences in Act 2 by bluntly dispelling any vague homoerotic undertones, as if atoning for an unintended vibe in the original—which added psychological and social texture to the piece. The disclaimer feels especially anachronistic, even cowardly, in 2004.
Whether by Simon's script or director Bob Cain's interpretation, or a combination thereof, some jokes have been updated (Bill Clinton as a punch line? Har ... Har ...), some dumped, some inexplicably halved. Why deploy one joke's setup—Florence/Felix sends their spouse a "suicide telegram"—without the rim shot—"Can you imagine getting a thing like that? (S)he even had to tip the kid a quarter"? Why, in an e-mail/fax/text-messaging era, use it at all?
Most of the remaining gags are trampled and flattened by Cain's steamroller direction, devoid of nuance, which noticeably leaves Paula Wilkes hamstrung. Though the actress fares best, her earthy, likable Olive capable of behavioral shadings, she leapfrogs from mild bemusement to near-fury, with nary a nod to the slow-burn exasperation that is the comic guts of the play. What's a payoff without a buildup? Helen Okonski's mannered performance as Florence is stuck on relentless, robotic neurosis, eyes obscured behind a constant squint, voice an unmodulated whine, her maturity an unsettling—OK, creepy—contrast when the duo hook up with the young Costazuela brothers (supplanting the original's "cuckoo Pigeon sisters").
This airless rendering of Simon's needless revamp tastes a lot like Oscar/Olive's sandwiches: new cheese over old meat.
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Twisted Tennessee, conversely, is a cross between postmodern vaudeville and the sketch buffoonery of the old Carol Burnett Show, playwright Durang aiming a mess o' parody at Williams' overwrought angst. That's a big, fat, juicy target one can hardly miss, though not everything nails the bull's-eye.
The leadoff one-act, Desire, Desire, Desire, is the topper of the two, a hellzapoppin' homage to Streetcar and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and for the hell of it, backhanded references to The Iceman Cometh, Glengarry Glen Ross, Waiting for Godot and Harvey.
Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois are having one perfectly slobby, sexless evening at home, with Stella gone for six years, ever since Blanche dispatched her to get a Lemon Coke. Exceptionally horny, Blanche tries to seduce a young census taker, but is thwarted by Tin Roof's Big Daddy (Robert Blonmgren) and two Maggie the Cats. Stella briefly returns—preggers—but splits again, leaving Stanley and Blanche stuck with each other.
Nearly Mel Brooksian in its broadness, courtesy of director T.J. Larsen's admirable abandon, this cathartic comic caper is carried by Eric Amblad and Katrina Larsen. Amblad, a natural comic actor, gnaws scenery and spritzes beer—uproariously—as a stained, slouchy Stanley, screaming "Stella!" at the drop of a sight gag and finally owning up to a gay encounter with Skipper, the unseen, suicidal best friend/assumed lover of Brick in Hot Tin Roof. (You still with me, here?) The magnetic Larsen busts a gut (and heroically suffers Amblad's sudsy spit-takes right in the face) as Blanche—think Carol Burnett wearing that curtain-rod frock in the famed Gone With the Wind spoof, and you get the tone—her sex-starved, drama-queen declarations of "Desire! Desire! Desire!" sounding like a Prozac-wracked Scarlet bemoaning her lost Tara.
Despite the best efforts of a game cast and director JayC Stoddard, closing one-act For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls, Durang's Glass Menagerie takeoff, loses satiric steam. Williams' fragile Laura, who collected delicate glass ornaments, becomes jittery hypochondriac Lawrence (tic-ridden Tyler Winkle), who hoards cocktail swizzle sticks. "Normal" son Tom (Joel P. Wayman)—who digs Hyapatia Lee porn flicks—brings home not a "gentleman caller," but butch warehouse worker Ginny (Julia Styles-resembling Kirsten Kuzmirek), causing mom Amanda (precision-funny Erica Stoddard) to fume: "We haven't had a lesbian in this house since your grandmother died!" Ginny is also hard of hearing, triggering lots of misheard-word jokes, a gimmick not even amusing on sitcoms anymore.
Scattered bits score laughs, but Belle feels like it should be funnier. Durang's rhythms here lack the propulsive comic kick of Desire, and comparatively, it pales.
An Odd Couple, actually.