The Odd Couple (Female Version)

The Odd Couple is one of Neil Simon’s best-loved and most successful comedies. It was first performed on Broadway in 1965, with the legendary Walther Matthau and Art Carney in the lead roles. The plot revolves around two mismatched roommates – the neat, neurotic and uptight Felix Unger and the slovenly, easy-going Oscar Madison.

Separated and divorced respectively, the pair host a weekly poker game with an equally eccentric group of friends and stage a hilarious attempt to befriend the occupants of the upstairs apartment, the English-born Pigeon Sisters.

In 1985, Neil Simon revised the play for a female cast. In The Female Odd Couple, the ill-assorted roommates are Florence Ungar and Olive Madison. The poker game becomes Trivial Pursuit, with the players becoming girlfriends Mikey, Sylvie, Vera and Renee. The Pigeon sisters became the Spanish-born, Costazuela brothers, Manolo and Jesus. The show ran for a year on Broadway with Rita Moreno as Olive and Sally Struthers as Florence.

In this Donegal Drama Circle production, Emer McMullin is Olive Madison, Suzanne Thomas is Florence Unger, Aoife Cassidy is Sylvie, Rhiannon Kerrigan is Vera, Rebecca O’Connor is Renee, Ciara Boyle is Mikey and the Costazuela Brothers, Manolo and Jesus, are played by Seamus McHugh and Conor Friery.