Source: Wall Street Journal
Date: November 13, 2009
Byline: Terry Teachout

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

East Haddam, Conn. — Some musicals are funnier than others, but few of the most memorable ones rise or fall on the strength of their jokes. "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," which opened on Broadway in 1962 and has been playing somewhere or other ever since, is an exception. It's the funniest musical ever written, give or take . . . well, nothing. The book, by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove, could be performed without the songs and still work — and the songs are by Stephen Sondheim! To see "A Funny Thing," even in a fair-to-middling production, is to be enraptured, and Goodspeed Musicals' revival, directed and choreographed with whirlwind flair by Ted Pappas, leaves nothing at all to be desired in the make-'em-laugh department.

Gelbart and Shevelove used a trio of classic Roman comedies by Plautus as the basis for their baggy-pants farce, which is far too complicated to summarize here or anywhere else. Suffice it to say that the script of "A Funny Thing" is stuffed with slaves, masters, courtesans, nagging wives and punch lines, all woven into a tightly knit tangle of coincidence and chaos — and that "Comedy Tonight," which was added to the show by Mr. Sondheim during previews at the suggestion of Jerome Robbins, might just be the most effective opening number in the history of the American musical.

Except for "Comedy Tonight," Mr. Sondheim's songs are rarely heard outside the context of the show, and most critics, myself previously included, typically fail to appreciate the contribution that they make to the total effect of "A Funny Thing." This time, though, I got it: Mr. Sondheim's neatly turned rhymes and clean, crisp harmonies, especially in "Free," play cleverly against the plot, adding a pinch of sweetness that sharpens the savor of the knockabout humor.

Like all farces, "A Funny Thing" must be staged with split-second exactitude in order to come off. Part of the charm of this revival arises from the fact that it's being performed on the thumbnail-size stage of the Goodspeed Opera House. By compressing the action of the show into so small a playing area, Mr. Pappas has revved it up to roller-coaster velocity. Adam Heller, who plays Pseudolus, the role created on Broadway by Zero Mostel, was suffering from a case of laryngitis when I saw "A Funny Thing" last week, but that didn't appear to slow him down in the slightest, and his fellow cast members chased him around the stage with hurtling abandon.

I like a deep-dish masterpiece as much as the next egghead, but there's nothing like sheer escapism to make the heart soar. If you need a pick-me-up, go to Goodspeed and let Mr. Heller and his colleagues put a mile-wide smile on your face.