15: 2006 - The Odd Couple

Quite a famous piece, this one - most people have heard of it, and/or seen the movie. In that, of course, they genuinely did have a nine-room New York apartment in which to stage the action. We were rather more confined in our production; not that that caused much of an issue, except in crowding several people around the table and still being able to see all of them. This is something that quite often crops up with stage positioning: on the face of it, it looks unnatural - and often feels unnatural to actors - to have all the chairs upstage of the table. From the audience point of view, though, it is perfectly acceptable and a great improvement over looking at the back of people's heads.

The play is in two halves, effectively. Although the set and furniture do not change, the apartment starts off in a disgracefully untidy bachelor-pad state, with clothes and rubbish strewn everywhere. By halfway through, it is spotlessly tidy, as in the photo above. Neutral colours and clean lines helped this transition to occur: everything else was down to the cast!