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L to R: Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, Ron Glass and Demond Wilson.
(Photo: Everett Collection) |
Will The Odd Couple ever stop running? It’s the Volkswagen Beetle of comedies: endlessly durable, with admirably few moving parts. A director need only find a slobby Oscar and a tidy Felix who can deliver jokes, and not much can go wrong. Hence its endless reinvention: two sitcoms (including an African-American pairing), three Broadway stagings (one gender-switched to Olive and Florence), and an animated TV series, The Oddball Couple, about a cat and dog called Spiffy and Fleabag. It can even be played for dark comedy, as in the 1968 film, the first half-hour of which is about Felix’s suicide attempts. The new Nathan Lane–Matthew Broderick revival tries something still newer: casting a Felix in both parts.
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