Paul Potenza and Shawn Paonessa are so convincing as the leads in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, it comes as a shock to discover, a little way through Act II, that this couple is becoming monotonous. It's worse than a shock: after all, these two formidable actors have easily delighted us in Act I, and we have every right to think that they'll do the same in the play's second half.
But Simon's script won't let them: it shows us Oscar Madison (Paonessa) so often being angrily exasperated, and Felix Unger (Potenza) so repetitively being unaccommodating, that finally the characters seem shrill and only intermittently comic. I hate to say it, but the TV series, with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, was more interesting than this play on which it was based. At least the television writers usually gave Oscar and Felix an interesting problem to solve in their efficient half-hour. And didn't expect bickering to substitute for drama.
Please believe that the fault belongs to Simon and not to Jobsite Theater's two main actors. Potenza, easily one of the best performers in the Bay area, gives a brilliant interpretation of cleanliness-obsessed, sad sack Felix, and Paonessa, who seems born for his role, does everything right as slob Oscar, the poker-playing sportswriter. In Act I, when we're witnessing the events that eventually lead to Felix moving in with Oscar, the comedy is fresh and inventive and even moving (Felix is devastated that his wife wants a divorce). But once the move-in is complete, Simon's imagination flags, and not even a couple of mindless, giggling British bimbos (Kristina Stevenson and Summer Bohnenkamp-Jenkins, making the best of very little) can add thickness to this thin concoction.
Some of the other actors in the show — all playing Oscar's poker partners — might provide additional dramatic depth, but they're given next to nothing to do besides provide comic chatter. Still, two of them are outstanding: Jason Vaughan Evans as Vinnie, with a wry grin and oversize glasses, is perfectly hilarious, and Ward Smith as Speed has precisely the look and sound of an ethnic (Italian?) New Yorker. Two others aren't quite as successful: Michael C. McGreevy as policeman Murray doesn't show many colors, and Slake Counts, as Roy, speaks his lines so emphatically, he never quite blends with the ensemble. Chris Holcom's direction is well nigh impeccable, though, and Brian Smallheer's living room set is one of the most credible he's ever devised. There's a lot going for this production — but not as much for the script.
So let's point to the good stuff — most of which occurs in the first act. There's the wonderful scene when despondent Felix first arrives at Oscar's apartment, and all the poker players have agreed not to let on that they know his wife has kicked him out. There's a priceless minute when all the poker players, afraid Felix will commit suicide in the john, crowd around the door just in case he might "brush his teeth to death." There's some excellent physical comedy when Felix gets a neck spasm and Oscar, with ridiculously inappropriate technique, tries to massage the affected area. And there's a moment in Act II when furious Oscar sprays disinfectant into Felix's dinner in an attempt to express his resentment at his friend's germophobia. There's also a powerful visual point made when Oscar's pre-Felix living room — looking sloppy and thoughtlessly put together — turns, in Act II, into post-Felix crisp order. If there were more of these high points, The Odd Couple, in spite of its vacuity, might work as simple farce. But there aren't, and it doesn't.
Neil Simon eventually moved away from meaningless comedies about people in irrelevant situations and took on more serious autobiographical studies in Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues and other plays. I much prefer those latter efforts to his first shallow successes, but even in relatively early work like Last of the Red Hot Lovers and Plaza Suite, there's an underlying seriousness that reaches beyond the footlights to feeling and thinking members of the audience. The Odd Couple has no such importance. Its one subject is the incompatibility of Oscar and Felix, and after that issue is excavated, there's nothing else to dig for. If the Jobsite Theater production comes up empty for most of Act II, it's not the fault of its artists. This is a terribly limited play — and at the end, not surprisingly, all you can see is its limitations.
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2011.