Playwright: Burt Shevelove & Larry Gelbart ( book ), Stephen Sondheim ( music & lyrics ). At: Porchlight Music Theatre, Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont. Tickets: 1-773-327-5252; www.porchlightmusictheatre.org; $39-$45. Runs through: May 24
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a greatly amusing show which pays homage to baggy pants comedy, derived from burlesque and farce traditions dating back 2,200 years. Assuming you have a gaggle of capable comedians, this show is hard to ruin unless the director ( 1 ) ignores its comic history or ( 2 ) imposes some conceptual overlay. I'm delighted that neither misguided game is afoot this time 'round. Director Michael Weber, music director Linda Madonia, choreographer Brenda Didier and their design team are fully aware of the golden material they mine and they make it brisk, bright, bawdy, funny, frantic, romantic, and doc ... anything but bashful.
The plot of Funny/Forum is cribbed from comic farces by Roman playwright Plautus ( 254-184 BCE ) and then wedded to burlesque traditions of leggy, bosomy women pursued by goggle-eyed men accompanied by a brassy band. A crafty slave, Pseudolus, wins his freedom by arranging for his young master, Hero ( Miles Blim ), to wed his dream girl, Philia ( Sarah Lynn Robinson ), who is both a virgin and a courtesan. Pseudolus must outsmart other courtesans ( definitely not virgins ), a vain Roman captain ( Greg Zawada ), Hero's parents ( Will Clinger, Caron Buinis ) and fellow slave Hysterium, thereby providing numerous opportunities for "tumblers, grumblers, bumblers, fumblers" as the show's brilliant opening number, "Comedy Tonight," promises to deliver.
What Funny/Forum needs foremost is a skillful comic actor as Pseudolus, a shameless liar and uber-manipulator who nonetheless has charm. Bill Larkin is ideal. Clear of diction whether speaking or singing, a brilliant mugger and physically agile, he sparkles in the role so you almost never notice how hard he's working ( and all the cast work very hard ). Matt Crowle is a perfect foil as fellow slave Hysterium, bringing gentle gullibility to balance Larkin's brashness.
Funny/Forum is the first show for which Stephen Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics, although it's the show in which his music is the least important. The lyrics are tremendously witty and each song is apropos, yet Sondheim's music seems influenced by his modernist teacher, Milton Babbitt, more than by Broadway. Only "Comedy Tonight," "Lovely" and "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" are in typical Broadway styles. His musicexceptionally well-played by a six-piece orchestrais an intellectual counterweight to the raucous drive of the book.
Scenic designer Megan Truscott squeezes a jumbo setthree houses with working second floorsonto the intimate stage and does it with color and wit. Her act curtain heralds the show's vaudeville and burlesque traditions, brightly proclaiming "Comedy tonight!" It's no lie.