This is probably too late to do any of you much good but Carolyn and I went last night to see the Reprise! presentation of my favorite musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum up at UCLA. It closes tomorrow but if you're in L.A. and there's any way you can get up there to see it, you'll enjoy it a lot. Everyone in the house last night certainly did. The cast is outstanding and they sure looked like they were having a good time up there, dashing madly on and off stage and singing those spiffy Sondheim tunes.
Lee Wilkof, who's been a treasure of the theater for some time, stars as Pseudolus, the slave who yearns to claim his freedom by arranging an assignation between his young master and a courtesan from the House of Lycus. I saw Mr. Wilkof in the original version of the musical, Little Shop of Horrors, and have caught him in many a show since, including the recent New York revival of Kiss Me Kate. Always wonderful. I've probably seen at least thirty different productions of Forum so I could only marvel as he got laughs in places where I'd never seen a Pseudolus — not even Phil Silvers — get laughs.
The rest of the cast is good, too. Ron Orbach wrung every possible chuckle out of the role of Senex. Michael Kostroff was a perfect Lycus. Ruth Williamson, who seems to be in about half the plays I see, scored big as Domina, wife of Senex. I also liked Erich Bergen as a charmingly naive Hero, Annie Abrams as an even more naive Philia and Larry Raben as a properly hysterical Hysterium. The courtesans were lovely. The Proteans were funny. The fellow playing Miles Gloriosus (Stuart Ambrose) was properly villainous/hilarious. And Alan Mandell, playing Erronious, got a laugh with every single thing he said or did. Director David Lee did a great job casting and staging this production.
Forum connoisseurs will be interested to know that they included the song, "Farewell," which Sondheim wrote to give Nancy Walker a larger role in the '71 revival. Also for that production, S.S. wrote a tune called "The Echo Song" which replaced "That'll Show Him" in the second act and Reprise! opted to make that substitution here. I like the other tune better but it was nice to hear "The Echo Song" again. "Pretty Little Picture," which is sometimes omitted, was omitted — perhaps because it slows the action or perhaps because it's maybe the most difficult-to-sing song that Sondheim ever wrote. When I interviewed Phil Silvers, he was recovering from a stroke and he said, "Doing that song every night, I was harder to understand than I am now." They had to excise the number from the show and a lot of other productions have done so, as well.
Carolyn and I had a great time so go see this new incarnation if you're local and possibly can. Today's 2 PM matinee will be preceded at Noon by a free one-hour lecture by me on the history of the show. I will be the least funny person on that stage today.