First, the bullet points.
- I just don't like Matthew Broderick. I know I've rehashed this topic repeatedly, but enough with the adenoids already. That being said, he has some cute moments as Felix, most of which don't involve the use of his voice. He does an obsessive-compulsive pas-de-deux with a vacuum cleaner that is quite entertaining, and a bit where he takes on the embittered-wife role with Oscar is a riot.
- Nathan Lane really shouldn't be playing Oscar Madison. He's just not so believable as a sloppy hard-drinking wanna-be womanizer. Lane really came into his own in the fourth act, when Oscar has had it up to here with Felix and pretty much loses his mind and transforms back into Nathan Lane. Lane plays seething hysterical frustration like no one else -- when his voice goes up several octaves and several decibels to shout that the pasta isn't spaghetti, it's linGUEEEEEEE-NEEEEEEEE, I couldn't breathe for the next two minutes for all the laughing and the crying that goes with all the laughing. But that was one act out of four.
- Brad Garrett would have no career whatsoever if he were a foot shorter and his voice were an octave higher. He's a lucky lucky member of the gene pool.
- But did I have a major HITG! moment of the highest order. I spent the first fifteen minutes of the show staring at Roy, Oscar's accountant and one of Oscar and Felix's poker buddies, thinking "I know who that is, I know who that is." But the actor's name, Peter Frechette, didn't ring any bells. When I got home, I checked to see if I was correct, and oh, what a happy day: Peter Frechette had the honor of portraying Louis DiMucci in the vastly underrated cinematic masterpiece that is Grease 2. (A/k/a the Let's Do It For Our Country guy.)
- All of this being said, The Odd Couple is a perfectly serviceable and entertaining night at the theatre. One thing that would make it better: Broderick and Lane doing a John C. Reilly / Philip Seymour Hoffman in True West role switcheroo.
As Mr. Cosmopolitan and I were walking home commenting on the perfectly serviceable and entertaining night we'd had at the theatre, we took a minute to reflect on another evening at the theatre that rose far beyond perfectly serviceable and entertaining.
Three weeks after September 11, 2001, we stood in line to undergo several rounds of NYPD-sponsored security in order to see the Broadway revival of Noises Off. Noises Off -- in my view the funniest play ever written -- is laugh-your-ass-off hilarious even without great acting. But a spectacular cast, including Peter Gallagher, Patti LuPone, Faith Prince (just to mention the recognizable names), and especially the brilliant Katie Finneran, managed to transform a theatre full of shell-shocked New Yorkers aching for something to fill their collective emptiness into a community of joyously delirious lunatics, struggling to breathe in between shrieks of laughter. I remember looking over at my normally even-keeled husband and watching him quake in his seat, both hands over his mouth and tears pouring down his face, struggling to keep himself together as Katie Finneran ran up and down the stairs shouting "No bag! No bag! No bag!"
A more transcendent night of theatre I have never experienced. Take that, Matthew Broderick.
No comments:
Post a Comment