If you have Amazon Prime, this is an interview with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane from 2005 about their then-upcoming revival of The Odd Couple.
Surprisingly, they don't focus too much on the actual production or script, but there are some insightful moments. It ends up being more about the actors than the show. Some thoughts I found significant are embedded below:
Discussion with Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Joe Mantello, and Patrick Pancheco
History:
Play inspired by events in life of Danny Simon, who during divorce moved in and lived with Roy Gerber.
Simon had nothing to do with the TV version of the show
Discussion:
19:00 Lane: There is a musicality to the dialogue... It should seem very natural dialogue... and it's also funny... but it always have to come from just a guy talking... trying to express something... the danger is to play into "oh it's funny dialogue" and trying to make it funny... you can't... you always have to make it real...
22:00 Broderick: [Neil Simon] is an individual, and his writing has it's own idiosyncrasies...
26:45 Lane: It's like Felix, they talk about you for 20 minutes and then you have to come on and fulfill that...
36:30 Pancheco: There was a Spanish version where they played it gay and it ended up being a disaster...
39:30 Broderick: The joke is that I'm treating my buddy like my wife, if they were actually gay the joke wouldn't work....
Thanks to Julianna for sending this our way!
I was just thinking about this while I was watching the Lane/Broderick revival, the first scene is almost completely a frame around Felix. Every joke about him is almost a direct characterization. We're building him before he even steps on stage.
ReplyDelete"Felix? On New Year's Eve he has Pepto Bismol"
"Felix? Playing around? Are you crazy? He wears a vest and galoshes."
"You know what he's like, He sleeps on the window sill, 'Love me or I'll jump!'."
Simon has such an eye for building a character everyone believes and can feel the reality in him. And his writing only backs that up, thought that was all really interesting.
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