A Pair of Jokers

It's Sunday night backstage at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Broadway. Nathan Lane is sprawled on a couch in his tiny sitting room. His face is flushed. He looks exhausted. And no wonder: two days from now, he and Matthew Broderick are set to start previews of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, the play's first revival in 40 years. Broderick and Lane, whose singularly fizzy chemistry made the musical The Producers a colossal hit in 2001, have been rehearsing nonstop for the past three weeks. Lane will play the slovenly Oscar Madison, Broderick the famously fastidious Felix Unger. The entire run is already sold out; the advance box office is $21.5 million, more than any other play in the history of Broadway.

But Lane isn't just exhausted. Last night, in the grand old tradition of pre-opening theatrical disasters, he accidentally slammed his right index finger in a door and wound up in the hospital with a fracture, 14 stitches and a prescription for Vicodin. His finger is splinted and swathed in a huge white bandage.

Enter Broderick. He goggles at the wounded finger.

BRODERICK: I can't act with that.

LANE: For the show they're gonna get ...

BRODERICK: [Finishing Lane's sentence] ... what, one of those rubber green ones?

LANE: One of those green things. Like at ballparks. [He holds up his bandaged digit like a foam hand.] I'm No. 1! Oscar, he's a very positive character this time around.

BRODERICK: So does that thing come off on Tuesday?

LANE: Well, yeah. I'm not going to wear this in the show. Have you met my finger puppet Melvin? [Making the finger talk to Broderick] Hi! Hi, Matthew! [Aside] That's just a little of the magical chemistry you've heard so much about ...

Indeed. Almost more famous than either Broderick or Lane is the legendary rapport between them, and when you meet them you can see why. Chemistry between actors is an unpredictable thing, a will-o'-the-wisp, elusive and ineffable, but in the case of Broderick and Lane it's so palpably real and present you can practically smell it. They love each other, and they love performing with each other.

That unique rapport has made them the most bankable stars on Broadway. Separately, before The Producers, Broderick and Lane were both solid B-list performers: likable, reliable but limited. What they became together was something far more than the sum of their parts. With The Odd Couple, and the movie version of The Producers, which opens Dec. 16, they're going to see how far chemistry can take them.

BRODERICK: Is it, like, throbbing?

LANE: Yes, it's throbbing. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.