Laugh Potion

By T.E.K.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM

by BURT SHEVELOVE and LARRY GELBART

Plautus was the Neil Simon of Rome. When the tired businessman of the Eternal City trudged home from his officina on one of the seven hills in his sweat-stained toga and quaffed a quick goblet of Falernian, his wife probably said, "Carissime, in thealrum eamus.

Plautus novam fabulam dat." Wise woman. The old dramatic farceur manufactured situations that have kept audiences laughing for 23 centu ries. This is not news on New York's Via Magna Alba. Ten years ago, Burt Shevelove's and Larry Gelbart's free adaptation of Plautus' plays convulsed playgoers for 964 performances. At that time Zero Mostel pranced onstage like an elephant with a hotfoot in the star ring role of Pseudolus, a slave with a passion for freedom as avid as that of all 1 3 original colonies. He was gloriously funny, and in this revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Fo rum, Phil Silvers is every wit his equal.

Pseudolus' young master Hero (John Hansen) is piteously in love with the beauteous virgin Philia (Pamela Hall). If Pseudolus can secure her for Hero, he will receive his freedom. The plot tangles, twists, thickens, quickens, down alleys and up roofs, through brothels of spicy beauties and manses of spiky matrons, leaving behind a car nage of laugh-splintered ribs. Salve, Forum, et in arena hilaritatis! lo triumphe!

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