Friday, July 25, 2008

Theater review: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

By Arnold Wayne Jones of Dallas Voice

Mark Cristano

Bawdy cross-dressing humor, even when ably played by Andy Baldwin, right, isn't enough to make you go to this Forum.

“Dying is easy,” the great actor Sir Donald Wolfit allegedly said on his deathbed. “Comedy is hard.”

Maybe so — but it should never, ever look hard.

So, when you have a musical comedy that begins with a song called “Comedy Tonight” and no one’s laughing… well, that’s simply worse than dying.

There were in fact times throughout the bloated first act of WaterTower Theatre’s production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum when I began to crave the cold embrace of sweet death if it would end the performance a moment sooner. Alas, I lived to tell the tale.

Forum, Stephen Sondheim’s first work as a solo composer and lyricist, has never been one of his best, but that hasn’t stopped it enduring for more than 40 years. Probably that’s because it’s a portmanteau musical, with light, fun songs, a parade of dancing girls and extremely broad, bawdy humor. It’s the kind of musical the guys on Mad Men would have eaten up: Libidinous and dumb.

Maybe a production of it can work, but including the 1966 movie, I’ve never seen a version that lit up my interest. And too many things go wrong in WaterTower’s staging to change that.

Pseudolus, the conniving slave who serves the romantic lead Hero, needs to be an outrageous mirth-machine, but as played by David Stroh he’s Fozzie Bear without the hat. Stroh gets to open the show with the most identifiable song in the show, but his stage business is dull and silly.

Director Terry Martin should have considered casting Andy Baldwin, who plays fellow slave Hysterium, in the lead. Baldwin’s persona is that of royal tweaker, a hopped-up meth addict with a wiry body and genius comic timing. Along with the powerhouse Susan Mansur as the abrasive Domina, Sean Patrick Henry as wispy Hero and a trio of versatile Proteans, he’s one of the few in the cast to emerge with good feelings intact.

The same cannot be said of Michael Bahr. His Senex is as red-faced as Tip O’Neill with twice the gin blossoms and half the rhythm.

Most surprising is that many very talented people do quantifiably bad work here. Aaron Patrick Turner specializes in lavish costume designs, but these are hideous. Pseudolus and Hysterium are clad in ugly pajamas, and Hero looks like he’s wearing a Vera Wang slip to an especially trashy wedding.

Musical director Mark Mullino’s band is a beat off most of the time, and a squeaky, off-key horn turns what should be a thrilling fanfare into a wobbly opening from which the show never recovers.

Forum needs to be an energetic show, but this one saps your strength. The parade of audience members back to their seats after intermission resembled the Bataan Death March. Setting it to music doesn’t change the sense of doom.

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