The ODD Couple

Marriages may come and go but poker stays forever
- A wise saint called Felix, married once later divorced

Saturday morning i woke up only to see Sunil's threatening mail, the last three shows of The Odd Couple were scheduled for this weekend.

The Odd Couple is the third play i watched after Art by Evam and Five Point Someone. Unlike Art which had only three performers ruling the stage, The Odd Couple had eight performers including my favourite Sunil Vishnu, the Shooshaa.

The play begins on time and is hilarious, hilarious and even more hilarious. Oscar's (Karthik Kumar) expressions were at their best, especially when he speaks to his friend Murray's wife over telephone. The story is basically about two divorcees who share an apartment, while one of them is this live-this-moment guy, the other one is the itchy, picky and naggy kind who is obsessed about cleanliness and hygiene.

Felix (Karthik Srinivasan) walks into the stage sulky but at the end of this 110 mins play, he gets along with not just one but two gals and is all smiles and no words. The stage is set in Oscar's apartment which happens to be the meeting place of the six friends for a game of poker. Things turn upside down when Felix moves into Oscar's place after divorce.

Murray (Sunil Vishnu), Speed (Sarvesh Sridhar), Roy (Navin Balachandran) and Vinnie (Shankar Ramachandran) are the poker pals of Oscar. Although the cast has eight artists, no one other than Oscar and Felix have much to do but they have the audience gripped to them during their poker sessions. The Pigeon sisters (Anuradha Ananth and Kalyani Kumar) are also divorcees and reside in the same building with whom Oscar is desperate to get laid with, but it is the unconventional and naggy Felix who steals the show in front of the gals, much to the irony of Oscar.

Situational comedy is in plenty, there is humour in every dialogue and every action. The comedy in dialogues were welcomed with thunderous claps and a high-on-weed kind of laughter, but the the audience somehow missed a few subliminal comedies. There is one scene in the end where Oscar opens the window with hopes that Felix would jump out of it, that was a perfectly executed act but somehow it dint get the response it deserved.

The best dialogue was when Oscar in the end asks Felix 'Wont you thank me?', Felix 'What for?', Oscar 'For taking you in and throwing you out!'. This had a lot of meaning, it isn't that easy to put it in such a small conversation. Evam does it really well.

The play was directed by Evam which has done a very good job. The sets were fantastic and had an apartment inside the stage. The times during set change and props change were a disappointment with some unappealing music running in the background. Evam was smart enough in Art and had a small boy entertaining the audience during props change, something similar to that could have been done this time too. And one more thing, the telephone rings on the right side of the stage but the sound of ringing comes more from the left. It was a major flaw, blame the stupid speakers.

Otherwise the play is a major fun for a saturday evening. Only two more shows of The Odd Couple are in line for this season so make sure you don't miss it.