The Odd Couple is playing in Melbourne for a limited season before heading to the Theatre Royal Sydney on June 27. It stars actor, presenter, producer and entertainer Shane Jacobson as Oscar Madison; acclaimed performer of stage and screen Todd McKenney as Felix Ungar.
Seasoned performers Lucy Durack and Penny McNamee play the exuberant Pigeon sisters Cecily and Gwendolyn, while John Batcherlor (Roy), Laurence Coy (Speed), Jamie Oxenbould (Vinnie) and Anthony Taufa (Murray) round out the talented cast as Oscar’s poker loving friends.
Tickets and further information can be found at theoddcoupleplay.com.au.
Lucy and Penny on what they’ve discovered about their characters:
Lucy: Look, I think we’ve really learnt into the fact that Penn’s the one with the innuendos and outnuendos. Cecily’s a bit slower to get the jokes.
Penny: Cecily accidentally makes rude jokes and so Gwendolyn has to give her a nudge and go, “that was funny [and] that’s inappropriate.” Gwendolyn’s a little bit sassy. She likes to make a rude joke.
Lucy: We’ve established that Gwendolyn is the oldest and wiser sister of the two but they’re very close and they have a good time. They’re good time girls.
Lucy and Penny on finding the Pigeon sister’s accents:
Lucy: We did do some sessions with Linda, who’s our vocal and accent dialect coach, and she was great. She gave us some really good hooks and they really set us up with our scenes.
Penny: And we didn’t want to be too working class because they’re career women in a way and they’re quite forward and modern for the 60s. But they’ve come from England so they’re go-getters. We also didn’t want it to be kind of the Queen’s English, so, we had to find some middle ground, which I think we did. And being sisters we had to sound very similar, so, we’ve had a bit of fun.
Lucy and Penny on creating that sisterly bond:
Lucy: We’ve been friends for a really long time, and we’ve gone through lots of life. Penn got married a bit before me, but we went through our weddings, and we’ve got children the same age as each other. Penn’s kids are both a few months older than my kids and so I’ve looked to Penn a lot over the years.
Penny: Likewise. We’re also quite similar people. When we first met on [the musical] Wicked, we both felt like we saw the world the same way and we saw the life that we wanted to have in terms of trying to balance careers and families and even our extended families are similar. We both have similar upbringings.
Lucy: We’ve both come from close families, and we’re lucky for that. So yeah, we’ve been friends for a really long time. It was sort of like love at first sight. When we first became friends, we were just like, “well, we’re close friends from this minute.”
Penny: The thing that Luc and I say the most to each other is, same, same, me too, me too, me too, same, same, same.
Lucy: And we always say it like it’s a surprise.
Penny: Still. All these years later [laughs].
Lucy and Penny on what they love about being in a play vs. a musical:
Lucy: Well, it is quite a nice rest to not be singing and dancing.
Penny: Although we keep warming up our voice’s backstage doing singing exercises. We’re like, “oh, yeah, we’re not singing.”
Lucy: But having said that, we do need to warm up our voices still for this because we speak a bit higher than we’d speak in our regular speaking voice. And there’s lots of cackling.
Penny: And we’ve had the same singing teacher for many years, and so we both actually have the same vocal exercises, so we do walk around backstage doing that.
Lucy and Penny on who should come see The Odd Couple:
Penny: My parents immediately were excited. All my aunts, they’d already bought tickets before I was in it. So, they were just so excited. They’re like, “oh, this kills two birds with one stone.”
Lucy: I think what I have really enjoyed is, it’s got that real kind of American sitcom vibe to it as a play. I love Seinfeld and I feel like some of their friends, particularly like Jamie Oxenbould and Laurence Coy, they could easily slot into a Seinfeld episode. So, it’s got that kind of nostalgic American sitcom feel to it.
Penny: Also, it’s a period piece. Being set in the 1960s, there’s language that we don’t use anymore. So, I think it’s fascinating to see a different period of life being portrayed on stage. I feel like we don’t see that that much anymore. And even Lucy and I have learnt a lot of just some of the saying, some of the words, costumes, hairdos, all the things.
Lucy: And a different sort of historical period of comedy, I think it’s really interesting to come and see, and it still rings true. The rhythms and things, that doesn’t change throughout the ages in a lot of ways, but the things around it do and that’s quite interesting.
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Interviews were done as a group at the media call on May 22, 2024.
TINSEL and TAP SHOES 