"The Odd Couple, Female Version"

Neil Simon wrote two versions of "The Odd Couple." The "Female Version" replaces Oscar and Felix with Olive and Florence, and the Pigeon Sisters with the "Gazpacho Brothers." The poker game becomes a round of Trivial Pursuit. A lot of the dialogue is identical with the original version. I've done the show three times, playing Vera, Sylvie, and Florence.

Fire Berry was in the production in which I played Sylvie. She was cast as Mickey, and it was her first show with Sam Bass Theater. We are extremely lucky that she came back!

(No offense, Andy, if you're reading this, which you are probably not.) (Andy was the director.)

The set was Pepto Bismol pink. I don't know why. It's one of life's little mysteries. It was horrible.

And now I'm going to tell you about the time I almost set the stage on fire.

Sylvie smoked. A lot. She also emptied her ashtray into a wastepaper basket. Are you beginning to see how this happened? There is always supposed to be water in ashtrays, but for some reason there wasn't. I thought the cigarette was out, honest I did! But when I went to light the next one, I noticed that there seemed to be an awful lot of smoke in the air, considering that I hadn't lit it yet. I glanced over at the wastepaper basket, and sure enough, great gouts of smoke were rising out of it. The smoke was drifting up into the lights and out into the audience. We have a very small space and a little smoke goes a long way. The actress playing Olive was being completely upstaged by this, and some patrons were speculatively eyeing the exits. Somebody had to do something, and fast!

The trick is to deal with such unexpected and unscripted adventures without breaking character. Sylvie is the cynical, Lauren Bacall sort of person who could saunter (rapidly) across the stage, armed with a soft drink off the table, pour it into the basket, and saunter back in time to light her next cigarette, saying," There's more than one use for a warm Pepsi!"

So that's what I did.

Vera would have tried to blow it out, Mickey would have read it its rights, and Florence would have fed it a sandwich.