A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival,
Directed by Dennis Razze; Music Direction Nate Diehl
Erronius
It's always fun, and usually edifying to revisit a play after a number of years--in this case nearly thirty. And fun and edifying it was. This carefully crafted bit of profoundly silly stuff has held up extremely well as evidenced by the audience reactions. Those audiences started very small, but acted like full houses and by the end of the too short run had built into a respectable size. It didn't hurt that we had a decent 13 piece orchestra that sounded considerable bigger than that and serious dancers to play the courtesans.

I had done Hysterium at the Cleveland Play House in the Spring of 1981 and had been nominated for best Supporting Actor for my efforts (A young Tom Hanks won for Comedy of Errors at Great Lakes...I think...) Playing Hysterium at thirty-something was a delight...at sixty-something, it would have been a trial. Erronius was just my speed.

And what a terrific cast, headed by the delightful Brad DePlanche as Pseudolus. Dennis pulled together a real ensemble--no mean task in a short three week rehearsal period. Chris Faith took Hysterium into his own wacky diirections; Carl Wallnau made Senex his own inimitable dirty old man; Beth McVey created a Domina that pleased even Harper Jane who had done it with me at CPH;

A sampling of the reviews::

Wayne Turney...brings down the house with just a single word." --The Morning Call