The musical now on the stage at Porthouse Theater— A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum—is a curious comedy artifact in two ways. First, this 60-year-old script (book by comedy writing icons Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart) is a take on the farces written by Plautus, who had ’em rolling in the aisles around 200 BC. And second, it features the kind of sexual and gender gags that were thigh-slappers when JFK was President.
Busty, scantily-clad, and slightly dim damsels—pursued by leering guys of various sorts—was the coin of the realm when it came to comedy back then. And a lot of it can still be amusing when delivered with the pace and timing the demanding form cruelly requires. On that score this production, helmed by the brilliant director Terri Kent, is only partially successful.
Hell, even the genius composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim got it wrong initially and had to rewrite the opening song a couple times before it clicked. This was the first show for which he wrote both the music and the lyrics, and while some of the songs feel a bit clunky, there is little doubt that his opener (and closer) “Comedy Tonight” is pure gold.
Once that comedy flag is planted, the story of the slave Pseudolus proceeds, as he tries to connive his way around and through ancient Rome and win his freedom from the various masters and mistresses who pull his strings. His owner, an impetuous young man named Hero (a properly handsome Anthony Ghali), son of Senex, is enamored of lovely Philia (Allison Sheski)—a gal who knows how lovely she is but can’t count to three (are you enraged? see above).
On one side of Senex and Hero’s house is the brothel run by Marcus Lycus (juicily rendered by Joseph Ball) and on the other is the home of Erronius, who is abroad searching for his two children kidnapped by pirates. As for the virgin Philia, she is equally smitten by Hero but she is one of the courtesans in Lycus’s house and has already been sold to the macho warrior Captain Miles Gloriosus (the imposing Danté Murray).
Thus is the stage set for a gaggle of farcical gags as these characters, plus assorted other comely courtesans, soldiers and one harridan wife Domina (Lara Troyer). For this show to work, given its rather primitive approach to sexual relationships, the pace has to be just short of frenetic with pauses here and there to allow the audience to focus and readjust. In addition, the performers and director must bring oodles of comedic invention—sure, call it schtick— to keep the occasionally leaden script afloat.
After that dandy opening number, studded with a few sight gags that work and a couple that don’t, the pacing is a bit slow and uneven. Two characters who carry much of the comedy load at that point are Pseudolus and Senex’s chief slave Hysterium. As Pseudolus, Dylan Ratell has the smug down pat, but he doesn’t fully embody the soul of a con artist who is enjoying playing his masters for fools. And in the role of Hysterium, Tim Culver doesn’t fully blossom until he’s covered head-to-toe in a wedding gown as a stand-in for Philia. Those two actors should take over the show early on, but they seem to recede which allows the pace to slacken.
In other key roles, Jay White as Senex employs his mellow voice to good effect as Senex. And Rohn Thomas’s Erronius almost steals the show with his running gag (okay, make that a slow-shuffling gag) as he does laps around Rome to banish an evil spirit in his house.
As in any farce, confused identities and door-slamming chases abound until everything is tied up in a happy-ending bundle. When it works (the overly-regimented soldiers of Capt. Gloriosus!, the squeaking eunuchs!) comic invention provided by Kent, choreographer/artistic collaborator Martín Céspedes, and certain actors gives the show its wings. Those are the moments when Funny Thing is a funny thing, indeed.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Through June 24 at Porthouse Theatre, Blossom Music Center Campus, 3143 O’Neil Road, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44223, 330-672-3884, kent.edu/porthouse.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 13, 2023.
