By Myra Chanin . . . 

Neil Simon was the most celebrated comedy writer of the last half of the 20th century, with 30 Broadway plays and almost as many screenplays to his credit, as well as more Oscar and Tony wins than any other dramatist. He was also awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Drama which bestowed on his work the same respect given to playwrights Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. Not bad for a boy born in the Bronx to bickering parents. Actually, his bickering parents proved indispensable to anyone dispensing amusement and anticipating laughter.

Simon got his first professional yocks as a funny guy in Sid Ceasar’s “Your Show of Shows” writer’s room. When the star moved on to “Ceasar’s Hour,” Simon accepted an offer he couldn’t refuse. He replaced the incomparable Nat Hiken as the showrunner/writer for the last two years of the “Sgt. Bilko Show,” where Simon’s shenanigan-stuffed scripts helped turn Phil Silvers from a Second Banana into a Superstar. 

Rio Chaverro, Patti Gardner holding the capon with resembles the Maltese Falcon, and Juan Gamero

In his spare time, between Bilko half-hours, Simon applied a platinum finish to his first play, the autobiographical Come Blow Your Horn. It trailed a 21-year-old virgin leaving home to move in with his womanizing older bachelor brother, but ironically juxtaposed the older brother’s sudden hunger for a loving companion with the younger brother’s metamorphosis into a lady’s man. The Times called it “smoothly plotted, deftly written and laced with explosively hilarious character-rooted moments.” It became a hit, ran for two years and was made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra. 

Two years and two plays later, in 1965, when The Odd Couple opened, few people knew that one-half of that couple was based on Mel Brooks. Simon and Brooks had worked together, played poker together and ate lunch with an informal gourmet club of artists and show people, including Mario Puzo, Zero Mostel, Carl Reiner and Speed Vogel, an artist, sculptor and writer. Mel, estranged from his first wife, moved in with the newly divorced Vogel. They coped with each other about as well as Mel and Speed had coped with their exes. The character named Felix was excessively neat. His housemate Oscar was obsessively messy. Who was who? My money’s on Mel as the source of Felix the Fussbudget. Simon’s powers of observation struck a chord with both audiences and critics, rewarding him with another long-running hit and his first of many Tonys. Twenty years later, Simon produced a female version, which is now being performed at Boca Stage, directed by shtickmeister Keith Garsson. Get ready to LOL. It’s a hilariously merry romp. 

Four of the female characters in the cast are all pretty conventional New York wives. But the other two—the divorced Olive Madison (Amy London) and the discarded Florence Unger (Patti Gardner)—are roommates from Hell. Olive is a TV producer who looks professional when she goes off to work, but at home dresses like a disadvantaged teenager. Her homemaking skills are non-existent. There are no curtains on her dirty window, but she has a good heart. She allows the ex-husband, who gambled away her savings, to continue to hustle her for handouts; and, in a moment of madness, invites Florence, suddenly discarded by her husband Sydney after 24 years of marriage, to move in with her until Florence can get back on her feet. From across the room, even as she strips Olive’s detritus from the living room upholstery, Florence supplies answers to Trivial Pursuit questions the others don’t know. 

Florence (Patti Gardner) and Olive (Amy London)

When the curtain rises on Act 2, cheerful, spotless yellow curtains frame the gleaming windows. The sofa’s bare epidermis is inviting, and the food served by Florence to the Trivial Pursuits players is two cuts above the moldy sandwiches Olive formerly excavated from the depths of her fridge. Olive is still not involved with housekeeping, but is in the market for sex, which she hopes will be supplied to her and Florence by the only single guys in the building: the tall, dark and handsome, Spanish-born Costazuela brothers, Jesus (Rio Chavarro) and Manolo (Juan Gamero), who live on the floor below. Olive has been flirting with them in the elevator and has also invited them to come for dinner the following evening, which puts Florence in a twizzle about what to serve—until she decides on a capon. 

The scene between the Costazuela Brothers and Florence can only be described as comic perfection. The writing is flawless. The language mix-ups are sidesplitting. The body language between Jesus, Manolo, and Florence is uproarious. If a video of their interaction had been available, everybody in the audience would have taken one home to show their friends. That scene is now Number One on my comedy hit parade, having replaced the scenes between Dick Shawn and Zero Mostel in The Producers, which formerly reigned supreme for 66 years.

Juan Ganoro, Patti Unger, Rio Chaverro

A few words about the boys, our Laurel and Hardys. 

Rio Chavarro is an actor/director, spoken word poet, and MC/singer who made his debut with Boca Stage this season as Gabriel in Time Alone. Rio was born beside the Miami River to an exiled Cuban mother and a runaway indigenous Colombian merchant-marine father. He is a classically trained performing artist who studied in conservatories in NYC and Miami for acting and directing and graduated from neither. For the past 20+ years he has been perfecting his craft as an actor, writer, director/producer, singer, clown, mime and comedian. He is also a world-class Charlie Chaplin impersonator. 

Juan Gamero, originally from Rosario, Argentina, is ecstatic to return to the stage in Boca Stage’s rendition of The Odd Couple. Alongside working in the theater, Juan hosts the podcast “Midnight in Miami” in which he interviews local talent every week.

Keith Garsson has once again proved his comic and casting mastery. Bravo! As always, I’m impressed with Ardean Landhuis’s ingenuity in, time after time, creating a broad environment in such a narrow corridor. Once again Alberto Arroyo found appropriate costumes and Abby Rasmussen found correct props. I felt like I was back in 1985 on Riverside Avenue.

If you like to laugh, this is a production not to be missed. 

The Odd Couple (Female Version) will be performed through April 2 at Boca Stage’s Sol Theatre (3333 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton, Florida). For tickets: boxoffice@bocastage.net or call 561-300-0152