In 1996, Nathan Lane starred in a Broadway revival of my favorite musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I wrote about it here some years ago…
I saw Nathan Lane twice. Both times, I imposed on Larry Gelbart to get me house seats. As co-author of the play, Mr. Gelbart got damn good house seats but the first time I had his, I made a fatal error. I didn't pick up the tickets well before the performance so they gave them away (or sold them, perhaps via a scalper for megabucks) to someone else. When my date and I arrived at the theater that night, they instead stuck us in the back row of the St. James which was literally too narrow for someone 6'3" to sit in without having his knees up under his chin. I ended up sitting on the seat with the seat up, if you can figure out what I mean by that. I could not sit in the seat with the seat down. From there, Nathan Lane was about the size of a Jujubee.
This was a late preview and Gelbart, who would not see this production until weeks later, asked me to e-mail him immediately after the performance and give him my opinion. Out on the sidewalk afterwards, I used my cell phone to send him a three word review: NEEDS MORE JEWS. When Larry finally saw it, he called to tell me he agreed but said, "They'll grow into it."
He was, as he usually was in matters of comedy, correct. About eight months later, I was back in New York. Once again, I arranged for Mr. Gelbart's house seats but this time I was wiser. I scheduled Forum for my last night in Manhattan and picked the tickets up on my first day there. This time, my date and I (different date) were in the second row on the aisle. World of difference. Nathan Lane and the company had had many months to explore the play and learn how to get laughs with the material and they were much, much better even though insofar as I could tell, no Jews had been added.
And here, we have two clips from that production, one from the opening number, "Comedy Tonight," one from the reprise of it at the end. plus (after a pause you'll have to wait through) some video of the cast taking its bows. This was a great show even if it didn't top the production I saw with Phil Silvers in the lead…
