A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

A funny thing happened on the way to Country Dinner Playhouse. Actually, nothing funny happened on the way, but a whole lot of funny exploded on stage when the lights dimmed, the music started, and the cast materialized onto the circular stage. Consistently growing their productions bigger and better, Country Dinner goes through the roof with Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, currently spicing up the food, the atmosphere and laugh cycle.

Rob Costigan as Hysterium and Paul Dwyer as Pseudolus in the Country Dinner Playhouse production of the musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Director Christopher Willard certainly had his hands full corralling the comic geniuses chosen to sculpt this beloved hysterical play into nonsensical sense. The result: a brilliant piece of staging making the most of the theatre in the round.

Turn Paul Dwyer, Rob Costigan, Greg Price, Marcus Waterman, Thaddeus Valdez, Carla Kaiser Kotrc, Bill Berry, Heidi Morrow-Hahn, Bob Hoppe, Steven Cogswell, and Stephen Turner loose, in togas, on stage, all at the same time and there’s a total, 100 percent guarantee, the audience will have the giggling time of its life.

“Funny Thing” is pure hungry slapstick momentum. This wasn’t the run of the mill, look-at-me-isn’t-this-funny-slapstick. This isn’t the tried and true classic always-funny-
no-matter-who-does-it-slapstick. “Funny Thing” with the supercharged creative artistic thinkers under the talented magical mind of Willard, sprawl across the stage, up the aisles with one surprising antic after another.

Alann Worley brilliantly choreographed the mass comic attack with precision matching the talent of the cast.

In ancient Rome, there were three houses. In one lives the elderly Senex (Price), his uncontrollable harping wife, Domina, (Kotre), and their starry-eyed hormone ravaged son, Hero (Patrick Sawyer) who has as his personal slave starved for freedom, Pseudolus (Dwyer). That, in itself, should say it all, but there’s more, oh, so much more.

In the second house lives a decrepit, near-sighted very old man, Erronius (Berry).

The third house is the house of houses, prideful of courtesans owned and operated by Lycus (Waterman).

Senex and Domina are off to visit her mother, leaving their tongue-dripping son in charge of Pseudolus. The innocent, sheltered tongue-hanging Hero has a mass love attack for Philia, a virgin, a dumb one, in training as a courtesan. Psedolus strikes while the iron is hot, promising Hero he will get Philia for him if he, in turn, can have his freedom.

That starts the ball rolling. Roll it does, gaining strength, power, confused misunderstanding, mis-identification, fouled up plans, pressurized time sequences rolling around on stage, and up and down the aisles.

Hoppe, Cogswell and Turner play The Proteans who play a variety of roles. Their comedic energy so tied together, they operate as one on an invisible sting of energy creating and complimenting their “funnily” antics.

This cast is so brilliantly constrained, constructed, and hilariously unfurled, it is difficult to believe Sondheim didn’t have them in mind when he conceived the Forum notion. With entertaining delectable songs like Comedy Tonight; Hero’s plaintiff Love, I Hear; Pseudolus’s cry for Free, the declarative Everybody Ought To Have A Maid, and Domina’s tongue-hanging That Dirty Old man, the songs extend the characters, and the cast claims ownership.

“Funny Thing” is sheer, total, unadulterated entertainment, a huge dose of fresh air, a wide-eyed giggle, a-slap-on-the-knee-choke, and honest laughter for honest comedy presented with top of the line comic minded artists.

Rob Westan designed the set understanding the possibilities and limitations of a theatre in the round. All roads lead to Rome, even up the aisles to a descending stage.

Musical Director Wendell Vaughn makes the most of his keyboards with Dean Tellefson on percussion.

Hero is rewarded with the love of his life. Pseudolus gains his freedom. Senex gets his kicks. Philia finds love. Erronius finds his long lost children after a meticulous traipsing over Rome’s seven hills. Domina finds a sense of nonsensical peace. Hysterium (Costigan) finds direction in his cross-wired instructions as a slave. And Country Dinner Playhouse finds a major hit on its hands.