Odd or not...

There is nothing in the world like the feel of a blank canvas, its promise of possibility still fresh, potent and palpable.

As a painter, I enjoy bringing that sense of promise to my other passion in life: theatre.

So instead of walking into productions with preconceptions or ideas, I prefer to approach each work on its own merit, akin to a blank canvas, ready to be painted in direct relation to the dance between directors, designers, performers, and audience. It is precisely the rhythm, feel, and flow of this dance that determines what sort of painting I'm left with by evening's end.

And yet, history dictates that some plays are harder to approach as blank canvases than others.

Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, now on at The Young Centre, certainly has its share of splattered, splodgey history, what with the memorable film and later television program. It's hard walking into something that is so loaded down with cultural baggage and personal history -and yet, in this instance, my unfamiliarity with either certainly has its advantages.

Yes, I have images of Jack Lemmon/Tony Randall in an apron, and Walter Matthau/Jack Klugman in an untucked shirt -one's the neatfreak, the other a slob -that much I know. But is there more to it than that?

Director Stuart Hughes thinks so.

Written as a comedy, the piece takes a look at the lives of two men who have recently suffered separations from their family lives. The inadvertent establishment of a pseudo-domestic situation perpetuates personal issues and forces them to try to resolve them and make peace with their own faults. I was struck at how much Hughes has explored the theme of friendship, support, and human relating, particularly between men, in this production.

To use an Oscar-ism, who'da thunk it?

The opening scene, with various Friday night poker buddies crowding around a table presents us with the typical "guys playing cards, gabbing, smoking, acting like guys" tableau. And yet the absence of their regular poker buddy is cause for much concern, as they suddenly transform into awkward mother hens and readily exude the kind of energy they claim to be escaping from.

Oliver Dennis, Kevin Bundy, Derek Boyes and Michael Hanrahan are uniformly wonderful as the team of buddies, to say nothing of the play's leads. Diego Matamoros infuses the nebbish Felix Unger with a desperate humanity, even as he balances the considerable comedy in the role. Albert Schultz, the Artistic Director of Soulpepper, puts aside the leading-man-gentility and revels in the rebellious slob-dom of Oscar Madison.

The two develop an interesting pattern of co-dependency as the play progresses, with Felix demanding phone calls and Oscar manically stalking his empty apartment after he throws his friend out. The stereotypes of each character are acknowledged, but never indulged; Felix is indeed a neatfreak, but his proclivities toward tidiness are treated as an exacerbated effect, rather than a cause -a wild clutching to keep a life in order that has fallen to chaos. We see him wielding a vacuum in one scene, as if he can simply suck away the pain his separation is causing.

Oscar's lack of hygiene, past being a personal defect, is more the result of a life and man given in to chaos -the stuffed wrappers, crushed crisps and crusty dishes symbols of middle-aged rebellion against an invisible wife, and one suspects, domesticity in general. His desperate flirtations with the silly Pigeon sisters, his thundering about the apartment, and close cushion-clutching shows us a man who is ultimately terrified of being alone.

Even with Simon's addition of those "cuckoo" Pigeon sisters (played with appropriate lightness by Amy Rutherford and Krystin Pellerin), this is a play about men. Time and again, Hughes gives us a powerful symbol of the great need men have to take care of, and indeed, be taken care of.

For all of its inbuilt comedy (and there are certainly plenty of laughs), this is a production that takes the importance of friendship, bonding, and honesty (however brutal) to heart, and mixes them to create an altogether new interpretation of what many consider to be an American classic.

The fact a company like Soulpepper -known for its classical repertory -is producing a piece like The Odd Couple is a brave, ballsy choice. Yet its inclusion into the current season perfectly compliments their reputation for providing solid, intelligent productions of classic works.

As Schultz noted in his comments for choosing the 10th anniversary season, laughter is a wonderful way to celebrate; it's also the perfect way to share moments with friends, old and new, and to appreciate the many gifts of friendship.

There's a canvas I heartily applaud.

The Odd Couple runs at The Young Centre for the Performing Arts through April 19; for more information on Soulpepper Theatre Company, including how to buy tickets, go to www.soulpepper.ca.