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The Odd Couple is a play by Neil Simon. Following its premiere on Broadway in 1965, the characters were revived in a successful 1968 film and 1970s television series , as well as several other derivative works and spin-offs.
Neil Simon’s classic comedy opens as a group of the guys are in the midst of their weekly poker game in the apartment of divorced sportswriter, Oscar Madison. And if the mess is any indication, it's no wonder that his wife left him.
The Odd Couple is a satirical play by American playwright Neil Simon. It opened on Broadway in 1965 and chronicles the unconventional relationship between friends turned roommates, Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar. The play found enduring success and inspired subsequent film and television adaptations.
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Further Reading
- Sources
Neil Simon was born on July 4, 1927, in the Bronx, New York, the younger son of a father who sold cloth fabric to the dress manufacturers in Manhattan’s garment district. At the age of fifteen Simon teamed with his older brother Danny to write comedy sketches for the annual employee party of a Brooklyn department store; their success in this endeav...
Act I: The Initial Poker Game
The Odd Coupleopens on a hot summer night in the large, twelfth-floor apartment of New York City sportswriter Oscar Madison. A few months earlier, before Oscar’s wife left him, the apartment had reflected the modest luxury of its Riverside Drive neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. But the apartment is now a mess because Oscar is very sloppy and his weekly poker game is in progress. Dirty dishes, empty bottles, half-filled glasses, ashtrays, and other messes created by the poker...
Act II, Scene 1: The Second Poker Game
Two weeks later, about eleven at night, another poker game is in session, but this time the apartment is immaculately clean. Felix appears from the kitchen with carefully prepared food and reminds all the players to use their coasters to preserve the carefully applied finish on the table. Some of the players, like Vinnie, are quite pleased with the new atmosphere. Others, like Oscar and Speed, are aggravated by the excessive concern for tidiness. The game breaks up prematurely and Murray is t...
Act II, Scene 2: An Evening with the Pigeon Sisters
A few days later, about eight at night, the dining room table is set elegantly for four. Felix is in the kitchen when Oscar enters cheerily. But Felix is angry because Oscar had told him he would be home at seven and that the sisters would arrive by seven-thirty. The dinner, planned for eight o’clock, is nearly ruined. Gwendolyn and Cecily arrive and they all sit, but Felix does not join the conversation until he comments, quite inappropriately, on the weather. When Oscar goes into the kitche...
Oscar Madison
Oscar Madison is the “messy” half of this famous “odd couple.” Oscar takes pity on his best friend, the newly separated and nearly suicidal Felix Ungar, and invites Felix to live with him in his New York City apartment. Within two weeks, however, Oscar regrets the invitation. The 43-year-old Oscar is carefree, pleasant, and very appealing as a character. When asked by one of the poker players what kind of sandwiches he’s serving, Oscar looks under the bread and says, “I got brown sandwiches a...
MEDIA ADAPTATIONS
1. The Odd Couple was adapted by Simon himself as a 1968 film starring Walter Matthau as Oscar and Jack Lemmonas Felix. Gene Saks, who directed the stage version, also directed the film—which is very faithful to the play script, though occasionally expanded to include street scenes in New York City. In technicolor, running 106 minutes, available from Paramount Home Video and at many video rental stores. A videodisc (Laservision) version is also available from Paramount. 2. An animated cartoon...
Murray
Murray, one of the poker players, is a policeman and a methodical, even slow, thinker. He is also very gentle and caring, and demonstrates the most concern for Felix. Murray is fairly unflappable, but he is also a bit simple and naive.
Order and Disorder
When two good friends newly separated from their wives decide to live together, the arrangement fails miserably because the two friends have personal habits and domestic lifestyles that are diametrically opposed. Felix likes to live in an extremely ordered and tidy living space while Oscar not only tolerates living in disorder and messiness but even seems to prefer it. Simon is more interested in creating compelling character types and raucous laughter than he is in investigating ideas, but t...
Public vs. Private Life
Oscar and Felix are best friends, but before moving in together they share only a public life with one another. When they finally share a living space, they discover that the pressures of private life are much more demanding. The transition from “good friends” to pseudo “husband and wife” tests compatibility in a way that only experience can prove. The same living space and the experience of round-the-clock sharing magnifies differences and makes the discord inescapable and intolerable. Oscar...
TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. Compare the movie version of The Odd Couplewith the television series. Which is more effective and why? How does each differ from the stage play? 2. Research to discover how rising costs have affected Broadway and how economic pressures have contributed to the dichotomy between commercial entertainment and art in American theatre. 3. Read several theoretical discussions that attempt to define comedy philosophically, as distinct from laughter, and then apply your definition of comedy to The...
Conflict
In November of 1963, Simon sold the screen-rights for The Odd Couple to Paramount Pictures before he had even written a single word of the play upon which the movie was eventually based. In his memoir, Rewrites,Simon quotes the single sentence he and his agent used to close the deal: “‘Well, it’s about two men who are divorced, move in together to save money to pay their alimony, and have the same fights with each other as they did with their wives.’” This anecdote illustrates the effectivene...
Character
What was not obvious in Simon’s one-sentence synopsis for Paramount is that the conflict was based on the clash of extremely different personality types. Ultimately, it is the creation of Oscar and Felix as an “oil and water” mix that makes it possible for The Odd Coupleto be tremendously funny. Simon creates these contrasting character types with the effective use of theatrical detail, most notably with carefully crafted dialogue. Sometimes it is the words of the character himself that estab...
Comedy
When one thinks of comedy one thinks first of laughter, and the The Odd Couplegenerates belly laughs, mainly because of the verbal cleverness captured in its “one-liners.” The “one-liner” is a short response in which the character’s retort surprises because of exaggeration or incongruity. For example, when Murray agrees to eat the “brown” sandwich that Oscar brings out of the kitchen, Roy says, “are you crazy? His refrigerator’s been broken for two weeks. I saw milk standing in there that was...
Vietnam
1965 was a period of considerable turmoil in the United States because President Lyndon Johnson, despite his claims to the contrary, was escalating U.S. involvement in Vietnam and many citizens (mostly young people) were protesting, especially on college campuses around the nation. In February, a month before The Odd Couple opened on Broadway in March, U.S. bombers were retaliating against North Vietnamese forces for attacks on American military advisors in South Vietnam. By March the first d...
Racial tensions
Adding to the turmoil created by Vietnam were continuing tensions over race relations. In Selma, Alabama, throughout February and March, Martin Luther King Jr. was leading civil rights protests against state regulations that limited black voter registration. Demonstrations were marred by violence as 200 Alabama state police used whips, night sticks, and tear gas to control the largely black crowds. The Governor of Alabama at the time, George Wallace, finally refused police protection for the...
COMPARE & CONTRAST
1. 1965: The divorce rate stood at 2.5% per 1,000 people, down from its high after World War II but up from a lower rate in 1960. The divorce rate had risen from 0.9% in 1910 and had jumped dramatically during the second World War to 3.5% in 1945, peaking in 1946 after the war had ended but then dipping steadily to 2.2% in 1960. Today:The divorce rate stands at around 4.6% per 1,000 people, down from its all-time high of 5.3% in 1981. The rates had risen steadily from 1965 and into the 1970s...
The Odd Couplehas been Neil Simon’s greatest popular success, running for 964 performances in its Broadway debut and then spawning a popular movie version, an even more popular television series, and eventually a kind of sequel or “female version” that tells the same story with the genders reversed. Added to these successes is the fact that all of ...
Terry Nienhuis
Nienhuis is an associate professor of English at Western Carolina University. Here he discusses the mechanics of humor, Simon’s facility with comedy, and the playwright’s struggle to be recognized as more than a gag writer. Neil Simon has been so successful financially and has become so popular with audiences that there is only one ambition left for him—to be taken seriously as an “artist.” The reluctance of critics to give him this respect continues to goad Simon and The Odd Coupleis a worth...
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
1. Any of the plays of Britain’s Alan Ayckbourn, who is often referred to as the “British Neil Simon” because of his commercial popularity, his ability to create laughter, and his prolific number of hits. More respected by critics, Ayckbourn is signficantly more daring technically and much more profound in his use of comedy than Simon. 2. Taking Laughter Seriously,by John Morreall, SUNY Press, 1983. A concise discussion of the psychological elements that underlie laughter, with a concluding c...
Howard Taubman
In this review, Taubman recounts the Broadway debut of The Odd Couple and praises Simon’s comedic skills. [This text has been suppressed due to author restrictions] [This text has been suppressed due to author restrictions] Source: Howard Taubman, review of The Odd Couple, in the New York Times,March 11, 1965.
Bryer, Jackson R., editor. The Playwright’s Art: Conversations with Contemporary Dramatists,Rutgers University Press, 1995, pp. 221-240. Johnson, Robert K. Neil Simon,Twayne, 1983. McGovern, Edythe. Neil Simon: A Critical Study,Frederick Ungar, 1978. Simon, Neil. Rewrites,Simon & Schuster, 1996. Weise, Judith. “Neil Simon,” in Critical Survey of Dr...
Berkowitz, Gerald M. “Neil Simon and His Amazing Laugh Machine,” Players Magazine,Vol. 47, no. 3, February-March, 1972, pp. 110-113. Gottfried, Martin. “Simon, (Marvin) Neil,” in Contemporary Dramatists,3rd edition, St. Martin’s Press, 1982. Kerr, Walter. “A Jigger and a Half” in his Thirty Plays Hath November,Simon & Schuster, 1969, pp. 297-301. K...
Aug 26, 2024 · The Odd Couple begins with a poker game in progress in the apartment of a divorced sportswriter, Oscar Madison. Although the apartment is spacious and furnished in good taste, it is quite...
Plot. Act One. In the smoke-filled, grubby apartment of Oscar Madison, Murray, Roy, Speed, and Vinnie are gathered together playing poker. Whilst shuffling and dealing at a very slow pace, Murray expresses his concern that Felix Ungar has not arrived as usual.
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This fall, for the first time, one of Neil Simon’s most beloved plays makes an appearance on the Festival stage. The Odd Couple will reunite artistic directors Ivers and Vaughn, last seen together in Stones in His Pockets. In an unexpected twist, they will alternate between the lead characters, Oscar and Felix.
