Steve's Show

Hey, I just noticed the Freud Playhouse at UCLA is putting on one of my favorite musicals, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. Here's how they describe it:

We'll take you to ancient Rome where courtesans wiggle and woo and desperate slaves plot and connive for their freedom in Stephen Sondheim's hysterical A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM. Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart add mayhem with a script that will have you laughing from start to finish. Sexy, silly and Sondheim, it'll be "Comedy Tonight" at the Freud.

Interesting, calling it "Sondheim's" show. When it opened in the early 60s, Sondheim wasn't such a big name. The production won the Tony for best musical, but his score wasn't even nominated.

Maybe I'll check it out, even if theatremania isn't thrilled:

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, now being presented by Reprise Theater Company at UCLA's Freud Playhouse, is a tricky musical comedy -- one that needs finesse to not devolve into 150 minutes of tired shtick.

Pretty nasty. Shevelove and Gelbart called their script a "scenario for Vaudevillians." I agree it needs inspired comic performance--what comedy doesn't? But if the cast has talent, the libretto will serve them well. It's not as if they have to start with a script full of "tired shtick" that they've got to make work.