Now through July 11
"Something familiar, something peculiar" are the opening lyrics of Stephen Sondheim's 1962 musical comedy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, but there's probably never been a production this unexpectedly and delightfully peculiar. I was clueless about what was in store at the Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF) until five minutes before the curtain when I overheard a gentleman of the old school mutter in the men's room: "Forum was all about tits and togas when I first saw it on Broadway. I don't see how they can do it with an all-male cast, but I will keep an open mind." If you're open-minded, you are in for a fantastic treat. To give Forum a fresh spin, the young director Jessica Stone proposed to WTF artistic director Nicholas Martin that she could stage it with an all-male cast, but she has not turned this into a campy drag show. The unconventional casting has merely made you more aware that Borscht Belt comedy with its reliance on visual and verbal puns can be sidesplittingly funny when its performed with razor-sharp timing. As Psuedolus, Christopher Fitzgerald (who recently played the leprechaun on Broadway in Finian's Rainbow) gives a star-turn that's as astonishingly riveting even if you've see this show many times before. But to say he's the star does a disservice to the rest of the cast who are uniformly excellent and play their roles as if the gods had dictated that they were fated to triumph on the WTF stage. With a 16-piece orchestra in the pit, Sondheim's score (the first for which he wrote both music and lyrics) sounds lush, almost symphonic. But the best sound of all is the laughter that ricochets off of the walls of the '62 Center from the opening curtain to the final bows. Laughing together with 500 other people for two hours is something peculiar and familiar indeed. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the ForumWilliamstown Theatre Festival Williamstown, MA
