April 26--If you are a fan of the comedic lyricist's art -- the provision of the perfect rhyme, the acknowledgment of alliterative pleasures, the coupling of deliciously contrasting notions, the matching of rhetorical form to musical function -- then there is no better show to ponder than "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," first seen on Broadway in 1962. Of all the great Stephen Sondheim musicals, "Forum" has the lyrics with the most oomph, mostly because they are so much better than they needed to be.
Take, for example, the silly ditty "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid," which you currently can hear sung at Stage 773 as one of the highlights of Michael Weber's revival of "Forum" for the Porchlight Music Theatre. It's not a number you'd write now, of course, but it surely makes the case that everybody really ought to have a maid, "fluttering up the stairway, shuttering up the windows, cluttering up the bedroom, buttering up the master, puttering all around the house." It's an aspirational number, led by a house-slave who is pretty much a maid himself, but it is, in its way, perfectly hilarious.
An homage to the Roman comedy of Plautus, "Forum" is full of such perfection of form -- "Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight" is a pretty good line, all in all, and the tune ain't bad, either. But it's far from an easy show to do, especially in a smaller theater, given its overtly vaudevillian style and reliance on comedic shtick of the very highest order. Weber's generally well-sung production, which is led by Bill Larkin as Pseudolus, has its moments and pleasures for Sondheim fans (including the situational number "Echo Song," cut from the original production but restored in some revivals). But it's a bit heavy-handed in places, hitting head-on where a glancing blow better serves the material.
Part of the issue is that the game and talented Larkin gets so involved in all of Pseudolus' capers -- on his way, he hopes, to freedom -- that he doesn't have time to emphasize the most important aspect of the character, which is that he is the smartest guy in the building, always in control of the narrative. If Pseudolus comes off as low-status and in a constant panic, and it is mostly that way here, he cannot easily be our way into the story, our guide to the madness of Senex (Will Clinger), Miles Gloriosus (Greg Zawada) and Lycus (Lorenzo Rush Jr.) and his various courtesans. Those courtesans, an eclectic and cheerfully anachronistic bunch under the choreographic direction of Brenda Didier, go all the way here, pushing the nod-and-a-wink style of the retro piece rather further than it easily can stand.
The performance I most enjoyed Saturday night came from Matt Crowle, who plays Hysterium but who knows that means he is to be anything but hysterical. Just twisted like a pretzel. Rush is also notable for how well he sings the material, and Miles Blim, as the eager young man Hero, is guileless in such a credible way that you worry for the kid.
"Forum" -- you'll recall the book is by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart -- is not an oft-produced Sondheim, and Porchlight's production offers an intimate staging, replete with a distinctive, handmade, soft-goods set from Megan Truscott that offers plenty of doors and balconies for manic antics. This is a full-out, what-you-see-is-what-you-get effort, where the stakes are pretty much the same all night long.
Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@tribpub.com
2.5 STARS
When: Through May 24
Where: Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave.
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Tickets: $39-$45 at 773-327-5252 or porchlightmusictheatre.org.
