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Casting gives 'Odd Couple' a clever twist

By Barbara L. Fredricksen and Arts, Entertainment Editor
In print: Friday, August 29, 2008

Peter Clapsis, standing, will play fussbudget Felix Ungar and Gary McCarragher will portray sloppy Oscar Madison in the Stage West production of The Odd Couple, the season opener at the Spring Hill playhouse.
	[MIKE CARLSON | Special to the Times]

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By now, most people over the age of 20 have seen Neil Simon's 1965 comedy The Odd Couple, either on stage, at the movies or in the TV series (or all three).

So a great deal of the pleasure of going to see it again is in watching what the actors do with their characters.

Perhaps that's why Stage West Community Playhouse director Patty Villegas cast six HAMI Award-winning actors to be in the theater's version of the eight-character show that opens on Thursday. She knew that if anyone could put a new twist on the old story, these seasoned performers could.

To make it even more interesting, the director cast against type.

In the role of slobby sportswriter Oscar Madison is Gary McCarragher, a slender, meticulously groomed young actor who won his HAMI as the nervous Dr. Bonney in the farce It Runs in the Family and was the straight-arrow prosecutor Lt. Ross in A Few Good Men.

In the role of the sensitive, persnickety Felix Ungar is Peter Clapsis, who won a HAMI mugging it up as the stout, rowdy slave Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and also did a memorable turn as the spunky leprechaun Og in Finian's Rainbow.

In the play, the two longtime friends and poker pals agree to share Oscar's large New York apartment after their marriages fall apart. Oscar drives Felix nuts with his slovenly ways, and Felix drives Oscar crazy with his compulsive neatness — the very things that broke up their marriages.

The secret to the show's success is to make Felix and Oscar equally sympathetic and likeable, so that the audience roots first for one and then the other.

Ms. Villegas (HAMI for Mrs. Sowerberry in Oliver!) cast two other seasoned performers as the giggly, cloyingly friendly Pigeon sisters — one a widow, the other a divorcee — who live upstairs from Oscar and Felix. Playing Gwendolyn is Terri Marwood (HAMI for costumes in Carnival); Cecily is played by Leanne Germann (HAMI for Norma in Victor/Victoria).

More traditionally cast are the guys' poker buddies.

Playing the nervous, reckless Speed is David Stenger (HAMI as Benny in Guys and Dolls); the worrywart Murray the cop is played by W. Paul Wade (HAMI as Charley in Charley's Aunt).

Jim Hansen (Markinson in A Few Good Men) plays Roy, Oscar's vacillating accountant; and Stage West newcomer Juan Triana plays Vinnie, the rather henpecked, cautious one.