The Odd Couple

  • May 8th, 2003 - May 18th, 2003
  • Bronwyn Dodson Theatre
  • Drama
  • Contemporary Piece Series
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'The Odd Couple' - Female Version

—   - Tim Blane - Wednesday, May 21st, 2003
Timorah Brown, Angelica Arias, Shelien Kostabi, Veronica Roas, Sheila Miller and Tiffany-Denise Turner star in the female version of "The Odd Couple."

The potato chips are spongy stale and the furniture is covered with brightly colored patches of parachute fabric.

The trashcan is a candidate for quarantine and the floor hasn't been mopped since the days of the Roman Republic. That's just the way Olive Madison (Shelleen Kostabi) wants it in Gary Krinke's production of the female version of Neil Simon's play "The Odd Couple."

Olive's buddies come from various walks of life; the cop (Sheila Miller), the floozy (Veronica Rosas), the frustrated wealthy wife (Tiffany Turner)and the feminist who is dating. a gynecologist (Angelica Arias).

They all congregate in her apartment on Friday nights escaping their banal lives in fun and funny games of Trivial Pursuit.

They have only managed to move the commonplace up a level. The jokes are a little fresher than the stale chips. Life is trivial.

Then a call arrives from Sidney, a 5'3" bald man who wears cowboy boots and a toupee making him look like an English Sheepdog.

Sidney informs Olive his wife Florence (Flo) is missing and last seen threatening suicide. Flo (Timorah Brown) is the sixth member of the group and beloved for her commitment to children and friends.

Our trivial ladies seek a course of action, to rescue Flo, but a comic display of strutting and foot tapping results in nothing being done at all. Then Flo shows up at the front door.

Olive invites her to share the apartment and slob meets neat freak in a classic collision pitting the spirit and energy of easy-going against the soul and inertia of immaculate. "Flo is suckin' all the air out of here," laments a character.

"She turned our nice game into the Christian Science Readina Room," states another.

Olive cannot withstand this assault against her solitude for long.

Initially she sublimates her irritation, channeling further enerqy into an already highly charged libido.

Olive and Flo dine with ManoJlo (Edwardo Juarez) and Jesus (Edward Campos) in the girl's apartment.

These young and handsome Spaniards have about as firm a grip on the English language as Olive has on her sexual desires.

In a truly funny dinner scene in which no one eats. The couples joust with Spanish and English like caballeros on wooden horses.

The cast in this Gary Krinke production brought energy amd speed to the performance. Kostabi comes at Brown with power like an unstoppable tide rushing an unmoved boulder. Brown withstands the assault with a stiff upper lip. This is not live TV. It is the living force of emotion.