On Stage: Performing Arts at our Oneonta Campuses by Rachel Frick Cardelle

SUNY Students Perform Burlesque Musical Comedy Tonight, Saturday

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim—book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart—is being performed at SUNY Oneonta, directed by John McCaslin-Doyle. In 1962, this burlesque musical comedy opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre.

I like getting to know a bit about the history of a play, and I had fun with this one. According to the book “Broadway Musicals: Show by Show” and Edward Copeland’s “Tangents,” a blogspot, the musical had a bumpy road getting off the ground. Sondheim couldn’t find the right lead actor, nor the right director. A number of actors turned the lead down for various reasons, while one potential director, Joshua Logan, wanted too much male nudity and another, Jerry Robbins, played hard to get. Zero Mostel, best known for playing Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway, finally took the lead part.

According to Sondheim, Mostel was desperate for work at the time, as he had been on the Hollywood Blacklist, a list of suspected communists identified in the 1940s and 1950s and compiled by various federal government agencies, in part based on investigations conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee.  After getting his director and lead actor, Sondheim came to realize his opening number, “Love is in the Air,” wasn’t the right hook to bring the audience into the play. But when Sondheim brought in Robbins to help make the show “click’” things got awkward because Robbins had testified before HUAC against Mostel.

Suffice it to say, I had to be careful as I looked into this production drama, as I could have spent hours going down various rabbit holes. Fortunately, I had the deadlines of this article and an interview with some of the cast and crew members to lure me back to the light. (But the speculations of why are interesting. One hypothesis that especially captured my…Rachel, pull yourself together. You have a deadline!)

So, for those who aren’t familiar with the vaudeville tradition of burlesque comedy, song and dance, “A funny thing happened on the way to the theater…” was an oft used opening line, from which this play gets its name. (Bob Hope used it a lot… for example, “A funny thing happened on my way to the theater. A guy asked me for a bite, so I bit him.” And, yes, I went down another rabbit hole for that one, which resulted in me watching a PBS show about Hope.) Like the vaudeville tradition, this show includes lots of comedy, song, and dance, as well as chaos, disguises, chases, and mistaken identity, but, spoiler alert: No one gets to the forum.

A quick overview of the show: It’s set in ancient Rome. There’s a clever slave, Pseudolus, who desperately wants his freedom. His young master, Hero, falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Philia, who lives next door… in a brothel. Philia, also a slave, has a very sweet temperament, no education, and has been kept a virgin so she can be sold at a high price. In fact, she has been sold to a Roman captain, Miles Gloriosus, a pompous braggart. Pseudolus strikes a deal with Hero: If he can help him win Philia’s love and secure her freedom, Hero will grant Pseudolus his own freedom. In making this deal, Pseudolus does not reckon with the fact that even as Philia falls in love with Hero she feels it to be her duty to go to Captain Gloriosus, nor that Hero’s father will show up in the midst of their antics and wreak his own chaos, nor a thousand other confounding factors that has so many people running back and forth across the stage.

There’s a lot to enjoy in this production. When I interviewed some of the cast and crew, and asked them about their favorite parts of doing this show, two of them, Brandon (who plays a series of roles) and Elyssa (Pseudolus), like the big chase scene.

“I think my favorite part is probably the chase scene. I have to do a bunch of ridiculous stuff, and I’m running around constantly having to do a quick change… it’s going to be insane, but it is a lot of fun,” Brandon began, after which Elyssa started laughing.

“I would agree! I think the chase is the most fun for me to do, just because it never stops! I get off stage, chug water, and then run back on, like truly there’s not even time to think of where you need to go off,” Elyssa elaborated. “There was one time I ran off stage and I said, ‘Where do I go? Where did I come from? Where did I go?’ And someone said, ‘Cotton-eyed Joe’!”

Mac (Captain Gloriosus), shared his favorite joke: “My favorite joke in the show is when I go to kiss Hysterium [who he thinks is Philia] and Pseudolus thinks that I want to kiss him. I get jumped on, aggressively. That’s my favorite part. My grandma will love that development!”

Stage Manager Jessy said the part she likes takes a little longer to play out.

“Pseudolus and Hysterium are trying to come up with this plan to dupe Miles Gloriosus so that they can secret Philia away. So they need a body. Pseudolus says, ‘A body… a body… I know! Gusto the Body Snatcher!’ Later they find out Gusto the Body Snatcher is dead, but they don’t know when the funeral is going to be… because someone snatched the body! The way these two [Pseudolus and Hysterium] deliver it just blows my mind every time. It is one of the funniest moments in the entire show.”

And, of course, as standard fare for a slapstick show, there is a rubber chicken.

“One of my favorite little things that I get to do as Hysterium is the chicken work. There’s a little rubber chicken, and I’ve gotten to learn how to act with a partner that isn’t a human being, but I pretend it is. And I react to it making noise—Ding! Ding! Ding!”Alex (Hysterium) said.

John, the director, picked his favorite moment as one that spoke to how well they all have gotten to know and enjoy one another, although they didn’t know each other before the show.

“Yeah, my favorite moment is the top of Act II, when Elyssa and Alex come out holding hands… it’s sweet, and you go through so much together in the show… and you didn’t really know each other before the show, did you? No, not at all,” he said. “But you’re singing and putting your arms around each other. It’s a community; it’s really wonderful!”

Elyssa agreed with him (I think!), as she added, “We were talking about this just now, how for the read through, I didn’t know anyone here and I was shaking and thinking, oh my god, everyone is so scary. Now I know everyone, and everyone’s just stupid!”

Which made her and the rest in the room laugh out loud.

There had been a lot of laughing during the interview, so I asked them how they controlled that on stage. They did talk about how often they’ll start laughing and, since they have become friends, they will often start laughing together during rehearsals. While the show is funny, the actors can’t laugh as they pull these silly stunts and say absurd things, though, so they shared tricks they are using to hold it together. Some of the answers I expected… but not all.

Alex bites the inside of his cheek, presumably to hold back a smile and distract himself from the joke. Mac avoids eye contact with anybody so they won’t set each other off. Elyssa? She says the phrase “dead puppies” to herself! I’ll admit, while a surprising response, this would stop me from laughing, too.

I asked many more questions and enjoyed the responses, but due to space I’ll share just one more. It was the response I got when I asked them if there was a line or song from the show that gets stuck in their head. The answer that has been stuck in my head was Alex’s: “One line that constantly, throughout the day, gets stuck in my head is Elyssa’s. She says, ‘Everything’s gonna be fine, pussy cat!’ Life is stressful; balancing classes, balancing rehearsals, that’s in itself stressful. But just thinking of that line and, okay, no matter what I’ve got this and everything will be good.”

So, for Mac’s grandmother—who I understand is coming from three hours away to see the show—no matter what happens up there on the stage to your grandson, or what he does up there, just remember:  Everything’s gonna be fine, pussy cat! That goes for all of us, actually.

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” directed by John McCaslin-Doyle, plays at SUNY Oneonta’s Goodrich Theatre April 23-25 at 7:30 p.m., and April 26 at 2 p.m. Tickets are on sale now, free with a SUNY Oneonta student ID and $10.00 for general admission.

Rachel Frick Cardelle covers performing arts at SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College.