Here's a long review of "Forum". It's a little too long. I don't expect you to read it all. I didn't. But scroll down for more commentary by me.
This brazenly retro Broadway musical, inspired by Plautus, is almost as timeless as comedy itself.
Here's a glorious, old-fashioned farce that, with its vintage Stephen Sondheim score and its
breathless book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, celebrates everything that man holds least
dear but can't deny himself: lust, greed, vanity, ambition; in short, all of those little failings that
make man human.
Yet for all of its disguises, mistaken identities, pratfalls and leering jokes, "A Funny Thing" is as
sophisticated as anything now on Broadway. In its own lunatic way, it's both wise and rigorously
disciplined. Easy sentimentality is nowhere to be found here; in its place is the kind of organized
chaos that leads to sheer, extremely contagious high spirits.
"A Funny Thing" should be around for a long time. Or, at least, for as long as the skyrocketing
Nathan Lane, his name now in lights above the title, stays on to play the part that made a
Broadway star of Zero Mostel in the first production, in 1962.
As Pseudolus, a subversive Roman slave, Lane triumphs, but not alone. He leads an ensemble
assault on the manners and morals of ancient Rome (circa 200 B.C.), on today's political
correctness and on what passes for good taste in an era when the boundaries between good taste
and bad are virtually invisible.
Sondheim has been quoted as saying that he found this show, the first for which he wrote both the
music and lyrics, "very experimental," in that it's "a direct antithesis of the Rodgers and
Hammerstein school." "The songs," he said, "could be removed from the show, and it wouldn't
make any difference," meaning that the book would still make uproarious, low-comedy sense.
That, thank heaven, is a fate we don't have to consider. Sondheim's score both serves the comedy
and provides a sort of commentary on it. From "Comedy Tonight," the rousing anthem that
opens the show and provides the finale, "A Funny Thing" is propelled as much by its witty,
comically inane love songs and patter songs as by its book. It's only experimental in that farce, as
George S. Kaufman once said of satire, "is something that closes on Saturday night." You don't
often find it on Broadway anymore.
The Zaks production is big, but it gives the impression of being intimate, which is vital to the
success of a farce in which each character is chin-deep in the tangled, misunderstood affairs of
everyone else.
To the extent that the story can be synopsized, "A Funny Thing" is about the escalating
complications that follow Pseudolus' attempt to win his freedom by arranging the elopement of
his brainless, virginal young master, Hero, and the equally brainless, still virginal courtesan,
Philia. She has been sold but not yet delivered to the army captain Miles (pronounced MEE-less)
Gloriosus.
When Miles shows up to claim his bride, Pseudolus' plans to stall the captain are interrupted by
the arrival of, first, Hero's lecherous father, Senex, whom Philia mistakes for Miles, then Hero's
battle-ax mother, Domina, and finally Erronius, a cheerfully muddled old man who has been off
searching for his son and daughter, stolen 20 years before by pirates.
Add to these characters: Hysterium, a fearful slave blackmailed by Pseudolus into acting as his
accomplice, and Lycus, the pimp who lives next door with Philia and the other courtesans.
In what seems to be no time at all, Pseudolus is masquerading as Lycus, there's a funeral featuring
a corpse not really dead and three different Philias are tearing around the stage more or less at the
same time. At one point, four separate stories are hanging in the balance, including that of old
Erronius. For reasons I can't go into, he has been advised by a soothsayer (Pseudolus) to walk
around Rome's seven hills seven times, which he does with game resolve.
All the action takes place in a Roman street in front of three houses through which entrances and
exits are made with split-second timing. The set, designed by Tony Walton, sees ancient Rome as it
might be visualized in a comic book: everything is slightly bent, like the motives of the people
inhabiting the space.
Though Lane is the focus of the production, he is surrounded by some very good clowns: Lewis J.
Stadlen (Senex), Mark Linn-Baker (Hysterium), Ernie Sabella (Lycus) and Mary Testa (Domina, a
lovesick cross between Margaret Dumont and Xantippe). Jim Stanek (Hero) and Jessica Boevers
(Philia) aren't exactly clowns, but they sing beautifully and remain comically dim throughout.
Sondheim is being too modest when he suggests that his songs could be removed and nobody
would miss them. His music and lyrics are absolutely integral to the evening's fun.
Consider "Impossible," in which Hero and Senex each gloomily suspect that Philia is in love with
the other. Or "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" (in which "a menial" rhymes with
"congenial"), an enthusiastically bawdy number sung by Pseudolus, Senex, Hysterium and Lycus.
Or "Lovely," when Philia happily admits that being lovely is what she does in life. It's funny and
sweet when it's first sung and very funny when reprised by Hysterium, who, disguised as Philia,
begins to fancy himself in his miraculous transformation.
And what can one say about the show's amazing courtesans? Today's fashion might require that
one identify them, possibly, as showwomen, or maybe showpersons. Though they're trained
dancers and do some athletic turns choreographed by Rob Marshall, they also function as --
there's no other term that fits -- showgirls. They are the sort of long, leggy young women that
Ziegfeld used to dress up his revues by undressing them.
It may not be too much to suggest that "A Funny Thing" is making fun of all such sexism while
clearly enjoying the spectacle.
Not even the courtesans can upstage Lane, however. Unlike the legendary Mostel, who delighted
audiences by reportedly climbing all over the show and more or less taking it hostage, Lane
succeeds by working with his colleagues. He insinuates himself into the consciousness with a kind
of devious, hard-edged innocence. He's as priceless in uncharacteristic repose as when he's
cavorting about the stage organizing some new caper or blissfully caught in a courtesan's scissors
grip. Coming from "The Birdcage," his first big Hollywood hit, Lane is welcome back on
Broadway where he belongs, at the top of the bill.
In the context of the season's other musicals, "A Funny Thing" looks heaven-sent.
PRODUCTION NOTES:
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart;
music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; directed by Jerry Zaks; choreographed by Rob Marshall;
sets and costumes by Tony Walton; lighting by Paul Gallo; sound by Tony Meola; orchestrations
by Jonathan Tunick; musical supervision by Edward Strauss; dance music arrangements by David
Chase; musical coordinator, Seymour Red Press; associate choreographer, Sarah Miles; associate
producers, Marc Routh, Perseus Productions and TV Asahi. Presented by Jujamcyn Theaters,
Scott Rudin/Paramount Pictures, The Viertel-Baruch-Frankel Group, Roger Berlind and Dodger
Productions.
With: Nathan Lane (Prologus and Pseudolus), Mark Linn-Baker (Hysterium), Lewis J. Stadlen
(Senex), Ernie Sabella (Lycus), William Duell (Erronius), Mary Testa (Domina), Jessica Boevers
(Philia), Cris Groenendaal (Miles Gloriosus), Jim Stanek (Hero) and Leigh Zimmerman
(Panacea).
Now, quite obviously, Nathan Lane and all them didn't really play Pseudolus. On the contrary, we had a cast of our own characters: