Vandegrift High School’s second fall play, The Odd Couple, shoots around the corner with some witty, adult humor meshed into this comedy. For the first time in Vandegrift history, our theatre department had 2 fall plays – a male and female version of the same show. With both shows springing up on the same week, students were torn about which show to attend. The girls’ version of the play was shown on Thursday October 13th and Friday October 14th at 7pm, while the guys got Saturday October 15th at 2pm and 7pm. Despite being such a young program, our theatre students really know how to stir up an audience.
Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple is a witty comedy consisting of drama and suspense blended together and placed in a great, comedic atmosphere. In the male version, the compulsive neat freak Felix Unger, (Brian Stewart) is thrown out on the streets of New York when his wife decides she wants a divorce. Felix has thoughts of suicide while wondering the streets, but ends up at his best friend Oscar Madison’s (Joe Grismore) apartment. Feeling sorry for his best friend, Oscar invites Felix to stay with him in his eight bedroom apartment. After a few days, Oscar and poker friends start to get agitated, but things get blown through the roof when Felix messes up a potential passionate evening with the “coo-coo” Pigeon sisters (Julie Latimer and Colleen McCool). Outraged with the “cleaning, cooking and crying” by Felix, Oscar decides to pack a few of Felix’s things and sends him on his way. A week later during poker night, Felix isn’t showing up on time and Oscar becomes worried once again, but then walks in Felix ready to grab the rest of his belongings. Felix then announces to the group that he’s temporarily stay with the Pigeon sisters. Oscar is surprised but is thankful his friend is okay and is left on good terms.
In the female play it holds the same general idea with different main characters now Florence Ungar (Megan Priebe) and Olive Madison (Kristen Kemper). Instead of poker night it now consists of Trivial Pursuit and the Pigeon sisters are now the Costazuela brothers, Manolo (Daniel Sullivan) and Jesus (Caleb Stubbs).
Both plays consist of an eleven person cast, but the actors weren’t the only people involved. Another fifteen people helped made the production happen. Actors and behind-the-scene students worked their butts off every day of the week before the show making sure everything ran smoothly.
Megan Priebe gracefully moved across the stage receiving a few laughs at her silly faces while Kristen Kemper received laughs from her amusing comments and gestures. The group of females who played at the table was constantly gaining laughs while they played against one another. Caleb Stubbs and Daniel Sullivan drew giggles from the crowds right away. Accents and thin mustaches are glowing from the two, making the dialog even better.
Joe Grismore knows how to make a crowd laugh. With the facetious comments Joe’s character makes, along with the setting of the plot, the crowd stays interested. Chuckles filled the theatre as Brian Stewart shows the soft side of his character, crying up a storm. Julie Latimer and Colleen McCool earned shouts of laughter from the comments to the amusing dialog; the two worked very well as a pair. Amusement was shown on the faces of the audience at the end of all the shows. Comments and laughter were spoken very highly as the play came to closing. Both versions of the show were a hit.
