SOURCE: Cummings, Scott T. “Fornes's Odd Couple: Oscar and Bertha at the Magic Theatre.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 8, no. 2 (spring 1994): 147-56.

In the following essay, Cummings critiques a 1992 Magic Theatre production of Oscar and Bertha, noting that Fornes's works “present some of the most poignant and painful aspects of being human in an abstract, almost pure, form.”

Maria Irene Fornes calls her play, Oscar and Bertha, “an exaggerated close-up, in a way an almost microscopic view of an extremely basic emotional situation.” The basic situation is sibling rivalry and the particular exaggeration here, which works to both comic and pathetic effect, is simply this: although Oscar and Bertha are adults, they behave like absolute children. Their mutual suspicion and animosity is so intense and so unchecked by the restraints of mature behavior that every interaction they have quickly devolves into verbal or physical combat. If their...