Commonweal Opens The Odd Couple Saturday

Eric Bunge (Felix) and Hall Cropp (Oscar) in the Commonweal’s production of The Odd Couple.

The Commonweal’s summer season opens Saturday (with the final preview performances tonight and Friday) with Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. The Odd Couple was a huge stage success, opening on Broadway in 1965. It ran for 966 performances and won several Tony awards. Simon adapted it into a motion picture in 1969, and the story ran as a television series in the early 70s. Because the play has had these incarnations (plus many performances in professional and community theaters around the globe), most people are already familiar with the basic story: two recently divorced men try and pull their lives together without driving each other insane.

The play is an unlikely success since it starts at the wrong side of the happily-ever-after story that pervades comedy on stage, film, and television. But The Odd Couple is clearly a story that captured the attention of the American public, perhaps because it appeared as many Americans were trying to come to terms with the question of what happens when the 50s ideal of marriage and family doesn’t work out. Many Americans were looking for second chances, and ready and willing to risk laughing in the post happy-ever-after world.

The Commonweal production features its Artistic Director, Hal Cropp and Managing Director Eric Bunge in the lead roles of Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar.

The Odd Couple runs May 15 - October 23
Hedda Gabler runs April 16 - June 12
The Rainmaker runs June 19 - October 24

Visit the Commonweal for schedules and tickets: Commonweal Theatre

Read Terry Rindfleisch’s Winona Daily News Story about the Commonweal’s The Odd Couple.