Looking Up Old Friends

Oscar climbs all over the couch, then wipes his feet on it. He points an aerosol can at Felix’s pasta and gives it a good spray before flinging pasta and plate against the wall. And in case prissy, neatnik Felix still doesn’t get the message, Oscar reminds his roommate that every single thing Felix does is irritating.

There are plenty of people laughing, but this rehearsal is a little different from the hundreds, maybe thousands, of other rehearsals each year of Neil Simon’s classic comedy, “The Odd Couple.” At this rehearsal, the playwright is in the room and he’s not just listening. He’s rewriting.

The Tony-winning “Odd Couple” has been a hit play, movie and TV series. But Simon, who rewrote his 1965 play in 1985 for women roommates, is tinkering with it again. “I didn’t want to just bring ‘The Odd Couple’ back on stage, because enough people have seen the play or film that they could probably say the words along with the actors,” says the nation’s most-produced playwright of his most-produced play. “I had to change it.”

“Oscar and Felix, a New Look at the Odd Couple” opens at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood on Wednesday. John Larroquette (TV’s “Night Court”) plays Oscar, Joe Regalbuto (“Murphy Brown”) plays Felix. “ ‘The Odd Couple’s’ been playing around the world for 36 years and people seem to love it,” says Simon, 74, during a lunch break from rehearsals. “But I wanted to give it a new look. I placed it in 2002, and there’s a slightly different relationship between Felix and Oscar, much more revealing of who they really are.”

Simon, who spent eight months rewriting even before he walked into rehearsals, has also compressed the play’s three acts into two. Although he hasn’t tampered much with the story or characters, Simon says, “I rewrote about 70%.”

Make that number a little higher, suggests Peter Bonerz, who is directing the Geffen production. He guesses that the script has changed another 5% to 10% since rehearsals started in mid-May. Bonerz adds, “He’s warned us that once preview audiences come in, it will change again, depending on their response.”

A lot of playwrights come to rehearsals to protect their material, observes Geffen producing director Gilbert Cates. “They don’t want a line changed. Neil comes to rehearsals to work.”

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Simon looks like a university professor as he sits just offstage in the rehearsal room. His arms are crossed on his chest, and he’s smiling more than laughing as the actors play out his lines. (Bonerz says Simon “laughs silently.”)

“It’s going well,” Simon says later. “I like the way it’s going.”

So do the actors. “I was having difficulty with the first scene, understanding exactly what Felix was doing there, and he gave me insight into who Felix is and what makes him tick,” Regalbuto says. “This is a part that’s been done by icons in film and theater, and to be able to get that kind of clarity as to what he wants is terrific. The playwright’s alive. And he’s here.”

“Oscar and Felix” is Simon’s 33rd play, including both earlier versions of “The Odd Couple,” and he’s nearly done with his 34th, an all-new play due at the Geffen next season. There have also been 25 screenplays, about half of them adaptations of his plays, three Tony Awards (“The Odd Couple” in 1965, “Biloxi Blues” in 1985 and “Lost in Yonkers” in 1991), a Pulitzer Prize (“Lost in Yonkers”), and assorted Oscar and Emmy nominations. He once had four shows simultaneously on Broadway in the ‘60s, and in 1983, a Broadway theater was named after him.

Although no contemporary American playwright has fared better at the box office, he can hardly be called a favorite of critics. Despite their accolades for his “Brighton Beach” trilogy and “Lost in Yonkers,” New York Times critics have called 2000’s “The Dinner Party” “a French farce with a Brooklyn accent,” and last year’s “45 Seconds Over Broadway” “a sincere but paper-thin valentine to New York.” Writing of “Rumors” in 1988, then-critic Frank Rich commented that Simon “casually empties out a file cabinet’s worth of often tangentially relevant jokes.”

At theatrical licensing company Samuel French, President Charles van Nostrand says he thinks Simon “is treated unfairly by the critical press.” The playwright is too often dismissed because he writes comedy, adds Manny Azenberg, who has produced 22 of Simon’s plays. “There was ‘Barefoot in the Park’ in 1963 and ‘Lost in Yonkers’ in 1991. Can you name another American playwright who has remained current for 40 years?”

Simon sighs audibly when it comes to critics. “They think that if you write that many plays, they come easily for you, and they never do. Never. Some are more enjoyable to write than others, but none of them are easy.”

“The Odd Couple” was among the easier ones. With most of his plays, Simon says, “I have a general idea and the play comes to me as I write it. With ‘The Odd Couple,’ I had an idea of the beginning, middle and end.”

The playwright, who was still living in New York at the time, tells of coming to Los Angeles in the early ‘60s to visit his brother Danny. Danny and a friend had each broken up with a spouse, had to save money for alimony and decided to share an apartment.

“I told Danny it was a great idea for a play, and he should write it,” Simon says. “He started to, but he didn’t get past Page 15. He said to me, ‘You’re the playwright. You write it.’ ”

So Simon did.

“There’s hardly anyone in this world who hasn’t lived with somebody else at some point--a mother, a son, a friend. There are any number of variations, and that’s why the play is so successful,” he observes. “People realize, ‘Yes, I’ve been through this and know what it’s like to have your roommate do things you can’t stand.’ ”

Simon’s characters are also very real, Larroquette adds. “They’re about real people, and sometimes fairly tragic people. Oscar is living alone, in a bit of a cave, doesn’t have his wife, doesn’t have his son, is past his prime and very alone. Both men are easily identifiable. They’re both very nice, and we want them to have some shred of happiness in their lives. I think the audience roots for them easily.”

Simon surely does. When actresses started writing to him about the play, wanting to perform it, he came up with “The Odd Couple” female version, substituting Trivial Pursuit for a poker game and a double date with two brothers rather than two sisters. Referring to his “Brighton Beach” and “Plaza Suite” trilogies, Simon quips that now he has an “Odd Couple” trilogy.

Two years ago, he says, “I wanted to write a play--I always want to write a play. It was time for next year’s play. Everybody is doing revivals now, and Manny wanted to do a revival of ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ and ‘Broadway Bound’ together. I said, ‘Let’s just do “The Odd Couple.” It would be easier.’

“Also what happened is that somebody sent me [the L.A. Theatre Works] audio version of the play with two very good actors. I listened to it, and I heard the audience laughing. But there should have been laughs where there weren’t, and I thought I could write the play better today. I think I know more about writing now.”

Enter Cates and his Geffen Playhouse. Simon knew Cates and also was drawn to the Geffen’s 500-seat size. Although many of his early plays began at the Ahmanson Theatre, he says today that “I feel a little less pressure than if I were on the stage of the Ahmanson with a new play.

“At the Ahmanson, it’s like opening on Broadway, minus the 3,000 miles. You’re going to have 1,500 people every night. I’m not saying it’s any easier, but I just feel more relaxed working here. The ambience is wonderful, it feels like a college theater or English theater, and with 500 seats, I feel I can get a really good perspective on how the audience likes the play.”

While Simon indicates his hope that the play will go on to Broadway, Cates emphasizes, “We don’t do plays for that reason. As a byproduct, it’s great. People will come and look at it, and if they want to take it to Broadway, would make a deal with Neil and the Geffen.”

The same would hold true for Simon’s next play. The four-character love story is basically serious, the playwright says, but it has a lot of comedy in it because the characters are witty. Although the characters are fictitious, “it’s very clear I think of them as Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett. I didn’t call them that because that would make the play biographical, and it isn’t. It’s out of my imagination.”

Simon wrote the first scene of the play 10 years ago, then put it aside. “I read it recently, just before we went into rehearsal, and continued writing. I’m putting the finishing touches on it now.”

Coming up, he reflects, is a very busy year: some rewrites of his 1966 book of the musical “Sweet Charity” for a potential Broadway revival. A possible film for Showtime, with Richard Benjamin directing, based on Simon’s 1996 memoir, “Rewrites.” Maybe another play. “And that,” he sighs, “is enough work.”

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“Oscar and Felix, A New Look at The Odd Couple,” Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Opens Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. Regular schedule: Tuesday-Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 4 and 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends July 21. $28-$46. (310) 208-5454.