MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – The local Lake Superior Theatre is bringing back some old comedy to the UP community. WZMQ’s Mitchell Rife spoke with the stars who are bringing ‘The Odd Couple’ back to life.
‘The Odd Couple’ is a Tony award-winning comedy show that premiered on Broadway in 1965. It’s been given some northwest flair from actors Sam White portraying Felix Ungar and Adam Maslak portraying Oscar Madison. Sam and Adam both began their acting careers in grade school, playing classic characters from Wizard of Oz and acting in some not-so-traditional plays. “Elementary school, 8th grade I was cast as the tin man, and that kind of started it and then harry potter became real popular and I was like wow acting is awesome,” commented White.
“I’m not making this up I was Doc Holliday and some of my classmates were Wyatt Earp and his brothers and we go to the O.K. Corral for the famous shootout and Santa Claus comes and intervenes and stops the shoot and everybody has a Merry Christmas and that was my first play,” commented Adam Maslak.
‘The Odd Couple’ is about two men–one divorced who move in together to save money for alimony. They both end up butting heads because they are fundamentally different people who both don’t seem to want to work on themselves. “Well Denise gave me the script to look at say hey read it over and I just found myself just literally chortling and just guttural laughing about a lot of the dialogue,” continued White.
“Just stay in their own stubborn ways which is too opposites one is a slovenly pig and the other one is a hypochondriac clean freak,” explained Maslak.
The constant noise and back-and-forth arguing from both characters are meant to bring out some unpredictable humor in the slapstick play. “The way things are right now in the world it seems like a lot of people just aren’t laughing like I know they can go for long periods of time without a big gut laugh and I know when you finally get that gut laugh you feel better,” continued Maslak
This is only the second play from this director who commented that the comedy genre as a whole can be a challenge to work with, especially with different senses of humor from the entire audience. “In comedy, you gotta play all the levels all the time. When are we upset? When are we happy?…and it all has to play so you need to find people who know exactly when to come in with that line and boom, hammer it home because if you don’t have that, you don’t have a comedy,” commented Director Denise Clark.
The Odd Couple is premiering at the Lake Superior Theatre Tuesday through the week and playing Sunday for their matinee.
