In 1996, Nathan Lane starred in a new production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the St. James Theater in New York. Forum has been my favorite show ever since 1970 when I first saw it in a revival that starred Phil Silvers, Larry Blyden, Nancy Walker, Lew Parker, Carl Ballantine and a bevy of other fine folks including Charlene Ryan, who is now married to some cartoonist named Sergio Aragonés. (Some of you already know this but I'm going to go through this again for those who don't.)
Best evening I ever spent in a theater. From that day forward, I was like an addict trying drug after drug trying to again experience the wonders of that first high. I have been to every production of the show I could possibly see, well aware I'll probably never find one as good as that one with Mr. Silvers. But okay. It doesn't have to be that good. I'll settle for anywhere in the same ballpark.
And sometimes I've seen really good ones and sometimes I've seen really bad ones. When I started going with Amber, I warned her that our dating would include attending productions of that show now and then…and fortunately, the first one I took her to was really, really good. Less than a month later, I took her to one that was really, really bad.
One of the really, really good ones, I saw before I met her. It was the one with Nathan Lane and I saw it twice. I was in New York just before it opened and I prevailed upon one of the authors of the show, Larry Gelbart, to get me house seats. He agreed on one condition: I was seeing it before he did so after the show, I was to exit the theater and immediately text him my quickie review of it.
I told him he had a deal. So I took a lady I knew in New York to see it and on the sidewalk outside after, I texted Larry a three-word review of what I'd seen. It said: NEEDS MORE JEWS.
A few weeks later, Larry saw it and he phoned me. He said, "You were right. Needs more Jews."
Several months later I was back in New York and I again coerced house seats out of Larry. This time, the same show with the same cast was much, much better. I don't think they added any Jews to it but Lane and the other players, including the incomparable Lewis J. Stadlen, had learned how to wring every single laugh out of every single line, including many I'd never seen get laughs before.
I took a different lady I knew in New York and we loved the show. It wasn't Phil Silvers but I'd long since given up expecting anything to clear the high bar he'd set.
The next time I was in New York after that, Mr. Lane had departed the show and his replacement was…this is not a joke…Whoopi Goldberg. I am not a fan of stunt casting…of men playing roles written for women or vice-versa. I don't think I'd go see Gypsy with Nathan Lane playing Mama Rose and I decided not to see Whoopi as Pseudolus. I decided to skip it — the one and only time I could easily have gone to see a version of Forum and didn't.
Recently, someone posted this video of Whoopi doing the opening number. There are a few bad edits in this but it still makes me wish I'd given it a try…