BWW Reviews: Something For Everyone at Gettysburg's A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM

There is a great deal of musical theatre out there. Not all of it - sometimes very little of it - manages to be true musical comedy. On the other hand, there are a few musicals that are nothing but comic, that have no reason for existence other than to be riotously cheerful, that audiences simply must laugh at helplessly while risking collapse. Of them, Stephen Sondheim's A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM may be the funniest. It is presumably a musical farce, but it is really vaudeville pure and simple, turned into two hours or so of spurious Roman history and laden with some of Sondheim's most delightfully silly songs.

FORUM is also, late in its history, one of the most charmingly flexibly-cast shows around. For decades the lead part of the slave Pseudolus was completely identified with its originator, Broadway legend Zero Mostel. It is still closely identified with him, but its 1996 Broadway revival broke casting tradition in a huge way when Whoopi Goldberg was cast as one of Nathan Lane's replacements as Pseudolus.

Taking a page from the revival, at Gettysburg Community Theatre, director Michael Baker recently cast Becca Willett as Pseudolus. While Baker kept the part more true to the original script than revival director Jerry Zaks did in Goldberg's casting, Willett still shone through as an original Pseudolus, in this case as a powerhouse bundle of energy that just might explode on the way to freedom, rather than as an older slave merely trying to trick her way into being set free. It's a nice touch, and a nice turn on the role.

In a show that requires big voices and broad humor for many of its characters, Baker also did a fine job of casting those roles. As keeper of the brothel next door, Marcus Lycus, Ed Riggs brought a deep rumble and more than a dash of Playboy king Hugh Hefner, with everything but the pipe and a bottle of Pepsi. Matthew Barninger's Captain Miles Gloriosus was equally nicely delivered, a blustering ball of loud, roaring machismo and self-congratulation.

Andrew Maher's Senex was the original hen-pecked husband with an urge to cut loose just this once, and his wife Domina, played by Betsy Bein, has him under her thumb and then some. Part of Bein's charm in the role was her utter blindness to anything outside herself; her Domina knows she's the center of the universe and that the rest of it doesn't matter at all - least of all Senex. She's far kinder and more attentive to Hysterium, the slave who runs the household. Michael Connelly's Hysterium was a marvel, perfectly afraid of everything, and dominated by the very force he believes he controls, Pseudolus.

Hero and Philia, the not-so-star-crossed lovers, Brandon Rosenberry and Sarah Fossett. They're both young, not so devious, and content to let the tricky Pseudolus manage to get them together - which is asking for trouble, and the driving force of the story, as Pseudolus' cleverness is greater than her ability to execute her plans. Martin Schroeder had the charming and funny bit part of Erronius, who's remembered from the movie version for being played by Buster Keaton in his last performance. The old man with the missing children is a small part but one that's integral to the story, and often easy to overlook until the end. Schroeder's comic flair made Erronius memorable from the moment he arrived back at his house. One of the best non-musical scenes in the show was Pseudolus' posing as a psychic to drive Erronius away from his house, as Willett, Connelly and Schroeder worked comic magic on the audience.

Pseudolus and the cast gave a delightful, rousing opening and closing "Comedy Tonight," the iconic song that nearly didn't go into the show (Sondheim only generated it when Jerome Robbins informed him that the original opening number didn't work, and the show's fortunes went from failing to through-the-roof out-of-town previews). Equally fine, however, were the performances of the two other classic numbers, "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" and "Bring Me My Bride," two of the funniest songs to ever reach Broadway. Willett and Riggs also scored on their "The House of Marcus Lycus," and Rosenberry and Fosett got serious love from the audience for their duet of "Lovely."

Gettysburg Community Theatre is blessed with a long stage for the size of the entire theatre, which assisted greatly in making the farce work. There's plenty of room for wild chases, parading, running in and out of buildings, and all the other joyfully silly elements of the show, as well as for the cast to assemble for "Comedy Tonight" without being cramped.

There are few musical comedies that are purely an evening of solid laughter, but this is one of the classics of the genre, and GCT 's production did not disappoint. It's one of the busiest stages in the area, so for its schedule, visit the website at www.gettysburgcommunitytheatre.org.

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