A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum – Walnut Street Theatre

Photo by Mark Garvin.
By Amanda VanNostrand.

Little depth and lots of laughter are waiting for you at Walnut Street Theatre in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.  This Tony Award Winning Best Musical was first seen on Broadway in 1962.  Lyrics and music written by Stephen Sondheim (West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, and more!).  A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum contains comedy (morals tomorrow, comedy today!) and much potential to please and entertain its audience members.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum presents the interwoven stories of men and women (but mostly men) on a street in Ancient Rome.  There’s Hero (Brandon O’Rourke), a lovesick young man in love with the virgin Philia (Alonna J. Smith) who resides in the brothel next door; Pseudolus (Frank Ferrante), Hero’s slave, who’s promised freedom if he can bring Hero and Philia together; Erronius (Bill Van Horn), a man in search of his two lost children; Lycus (Fran Prisco), the owner and peddler (let’s just say it: Pimp!) at the brothel; Domina, Hero’s mother and the only woman in the show with some depth (who endures the scoffs and belittling words and actions from her husband throughout), and a few others who top the show off with their own dose of comedy.  Oh, and the Ensemble of women (and Billy D. Hart).  But they’re just an afterthought; so pretend I didn’t waste time mentioning them.

The cast of the show has been impeccably chosen.  As the audience laughs, so do they.  It is obvious that the actresses and actors enjoy what they do, and their joy spills over onto the audience.

Frank Ferrante stars in and directs this show, so need I point out just how much talent he possesses?  He. Is. Excellent.  There were a few bumps in the road during this one viewing, and he handled them with confidence and finesse.  When he and his co-actor mixed up names in their lines, he went to the audience, asked for a Playbill, and used it to help them with their lines while never going out of character; when a curtain failed to go all the way up, he (and the rest of the cast on stage!) handled it gracefully, and the audience’s laughter proved their appreciation.  He can sing, dance, and act.  Frank Ferrante is a joy on the stage, and anyone sitting in the audience will likely have an immense amount of appreciation and respect for him by the end of the show.

Brandon O’Rourke, Frank Ferrante and Alanna J. Smith.  Photo by Mark Garvin.

The entire cast is excellent.  The Ensemble (Sara Brophy, Anne Connors, Jennie Eisenhower, Billy D. Hart, Kimberly Maxson, Ellie Mooney, and Kerri Rose) can sing, they have the sexy dance down, as well as slim, magazine-worthy bodies; which is lucky for them, because that is really all that most women in the show require! (More on that later.)  A favorite of the show would have to be Nichalas L. Parker, who plays Miles Gloriosus, the purchaser of Philia the virgin.  His voice is beautiful, and the songs that he sings will possibly be at the top of any audience member’s list.

As mentioned previously, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum is a musical.  The music is catchy and although you may leave with a song or two playing around in your head, you are not likely to recognize or later hear it in any other context.  The cast does well with the music (a favorite may be “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” with Senex, Pseudolus, Hysterium, and Lycus beautifully singing and awkwardly dancing in perfect unison) and it is certainly not bad music, but you may feel it is not on par with other musicals with which you may be more familiar.

The scenery?  Some (like this reviewer!) may see it as their heaven: bright pastel-colored houses with matching sparkly, Hollywood-style lights and flat green trees reaching to the top of the ceiling.  A seriously awesome set that many may wish to float right into (before realizing that the best, Barbie-pink house is in fact a brothel).  Whimsical and colorful, the set by designer Robert Andrew Kovach coincides well with the tone of the show.

The cast, music, and scenery were all great, and laughter was heard throughout.  Some of the jokes were legitimately funny: Erronius sporadically wandering across the stage as he searched; The Proteans interacting with each other and other characters in the funniest of ways.  Other jokes were sometimes silly, akin to jokes that children in early childhood classrooms would laugh at: friends hitting one-another in private areas, falling down at inopportune times, etc.  Some jokes could be seen as degrading to women: laughing at the fact a woman can not (was never taught to) count, or the fact that this same woman does not catch on to what is happening because she has been raised for one thing: to please a man.  (The multiple women living in the brothel did not have many speaking roles, so there is no telling what their stories were.)  So if you can stomach the roles of women being confined to half naked sexy dances in the faces and laps of male characters (outside of the Barbie-pink house, anyway), and the inability to count or think, you will quite enjoy this show.  But be careful: after viewing A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, one may confuse being uneducated (as women were in Ancient Rome) with being stupid.  But to be fair, the men are not portrayed much better.  They are also not too bright and have little-to-no clue about much at all.

But despite the cheesy jokes and degrading laughter (or perhaps because of them?), much laughter was heard in the audience.  If you are looking for amusement, and small amounts of thought, this lighthearted play is the one for you.

 

Running Time: 2 hours and 25 minutes, with one 15 minute intermission.
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum will be playing at Walnut Street Theatre (825 Walnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19107) until Sunday, October 22nd. For tickets call the box office at (215) 574-3550 or click here.