A Funny Thing

This review of the 2006 production of A Funny Thing on the Way to the Forum at Ferndale Rep was originally paired with a review of Broadway Bound at NCRT-- hence the references to Sid Caesar.  The "Eugene" mentioned is the main character of Broadway Bound, based on Neil Simon himself.  Simon wrote for Sid Caesar, and wrote about that in Laughter on the 23rd Floor.  Larry Gelbart, who wrote "Forum," had also written for Caesar.  Sid, that is.

Along with Ernie Kovacs and Steve Allen, Sid Caesar was a comic innovator in exploring the particular opportunities of the television medium, but sketch comedy goes back through radio, burlesque and vaudeville to Rome, where most of the comedies were variations on the plot of A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum. The aforementioned Larry Gelbart wrote the book, with Bert Shevelove. Gelbart wrote for the TV M*A*S*H, and also authored the kind of political satire that Eugene’s grandfather would like, like the teleplay about media barons, Weapons of Mass Distraction.

“Forum” was Stephen Sondheim’s first Broadway show writing music and lyrics. The story is an extended Sid Caesar sketch version of Roman comedy, with increasingly frenetic farce—characters with names like Hysterium and Erronius running around in togas-- punctuated by frequent songs.

 Except for the too-few melodies sung by the extraordinary Minderella Willens and the pleasing voice of Evan Needham, and a rollicking number featuring comic stars James Read, Steve Carter, Bob Wells and Lonnie Blankenchip, the songs are largely a distraction (but then, I’m not a Sondheim fan anyway.) But most of the cast is gloriously comic and energetic (including Carol Martinez, Evan Needham and Rob Service in crucial supporting roles), and the production is well served by all its other elements—lighting, costumes, set and Dianne Zuleger’s fast-paced direction.

 Among the fetching dancing courtesans, Kim Hodel in particular uses the spacious Ferndale stage to sinuous advantage. It’s naughty, it’s nice, it’s a sprightly evening (or afternoon) of summer fun. So let us bury our troubles and praise the Alumni—and all hail Sid Caesar, the mightiest Roman of them all!

the classic parody of "From Here to Eternity" where the
sea rushes in--and soaks them.

I was a child when Sid Caesar was a fixture on television, but I watched him whenever I could. I could stay up later on Saturday nights, but still, it might require me to be very quiet so my parents wouldn’t notice I was still up. I remember Your Show of Shows, and the team of Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. I remember that she got her own show for awhile. But I more clearly remember Caesar’s Hour, including individual sketches.

So from that perspective I judge the verdict on his “urban” comedy a little differently. For instance, those foreign movie parodies, which Middle America wasn’t supposed to like because they never saw foreign films. We sure didn't have any in my small western Pennsylvania town.  I didn’t see a foreign language film until college, but that didn’t stop me from seeing those parodies as funny. They were just funny, partly because they were strange. I’m sure knowing the movies made them funnier, but the level of satire wasn’t always that deep. They were just funny situations, and opportunities for Caesar to do his doubletalk, which doesn’t require knowing the language in question to appreciate it.

But there’s something else. Caesar’s Hour had a regular segment called "the Commuters." The suburban flight that would transform New York and pretty much end New York theatre (leading to the Broadway for tourists of today) was introducing people to the new culture of suburbia. There were new manners, expected behaviors. These sketches—some lasting almost the entire hour—explored these in the Caesar way. For example, I clearly remember a moment in one from seeing it once as a child. The couples were out together at a restaurant. They were all sitting in a booth and talking. A waiter brought a salad bowl. Carl Reiner told Sid to “toss the salad, Bob.”  Sid did one of his series of takes—he didn’t understand what he was supposed to do. Carl kept talking to someone, only to say again, more insistently, “toss the salad!” So Sid tossed it up in the air, lettuce leaves falling on everyone.

“Toss the salad” was a new concept to a city guy, probably from a poor immigrant family. It was part of middle class suburban manners. But it also happened to be a new concept to me. I was vaguely aware that the people on television were richer and more sophisticated than anyone I actually knew. So I saw it perhaps as something “ritzy” people said and did. But it also seemed possible that it was something I would need to know, or something I should know—something that adults knew.

another classic sketch--trying to be quiet during
"The Recital"

When you’re a kid just about everything “adult” is strange-- tossing a salad as much as foreign movies. You spend a lot of time trying to imagine why adults do and say things, and what they mean.  Sid Caesar’s humor was often based on exaggeration, and on taking something literally that wasn’t meant to be taken that way. It’s exactly the kind of humor that appeals to children, because we often make those mistakes, and we also often think adults are strange and don’t make much sense. Sid Caesar represented us.

Now the exaggeration in those sketches can also be appreciated for the variations, the lines of logic and the moments in which the logic jumps the tracks (the classic sketch "The Recital" is a good example.)   But there’s still something wonderful about their kinship to the imagination of childhood.

Crimes of the Heart (and a Gelbart joke)

Playwrights Beth Henley and Marsha Norman made waves with their Pulitzer Prize-winning plays in the early 1980s. They were something new on the American theatre scene: southern women playwrights, who both got their start at the Actor’s Theatre in Louisville, and not in the Northeast. Their big plays (Norman’s ’night, Mother, Henley’s Crimes of the Heart) were classified as southern Gothic, dealing with violence involving women as perpetrators as well as victims. Both were turned into good Hollywood movies, with especially fine roles for women.

 Both plays were notable then for their shock value, and so the first question I had when I saw Crimes of the Heart at Ferndale Repertory Theatre was whether it still had that particular kind of power. For me the answer was, not really. A quarter century of sitcoms later, the daringly sympathetic woman who shot her abusive husband is pretty tame, as is the promiscuous sister.

 But that only makes Crimes of the Heart an easier fit for community theatre audiences, which is otherwise fitting, since it was the participation of Beth Henley’s mother in community theatre in Jackson, Mississippi that got the future playwright and screenwriter into show business. It’s still a decent play, based very loosely on Chekhov’s Three Sisters, with some especially affecting scenes.
 The first act is creaky with exposition, but it gathers itself after that.

 At Ferndale, Alexandra Gellner plays Lenny, the oldest of the sisters, the shy one, dolefully celebrating her 30th birthday, which almost no one else remembered. Katie Sutter is Babe, the youngest sister, who shot her husband, a powerful politician. Nancy O’Bryan is Meg, the beautiful one, who returns from Hollywood where her singing career dead-ended into a job in a dog food factory (a job Beth Henley once had.)

 Babe’s lawyer who becomes more, is played by Neal Schoonmaker. Doc Porter, Meg’s former and perhaps re-lit flame, was played by Victor Howard when I saw this, though Brian Walker is listed in the program. Gloria Montgomery plays—and perhaps overplays—Chick Boyle, a busybody relative.

 Director Ginger Gene kept everything moving, and focused the key scenes. All the actors got their characters across and told the story, to the general satisfaction of the audience. Alexandra Gellner had the toughest role as Lenny, and she made the most of some subtle shades. Katie Sutter was most impressive in the key role of Babe, as she stumbled from sweet denial to hard realization to vulnerable hope. And the birthday cake ending always works.

 But for all the words and movement, and all the events (mostly offstage), the play felt a bit distant, like a sitcom. I missed feeling the intimacy of sisters. It seemed they hardly ever touched. The action stays in the antique-laden kitchen (designed by Paula Long and Ginger Gene), partly for dramatic unity, and partly because Henley intended to produce the play herself, on a shoestring budget. But a friend sent it to the Actor’s Theatre playwriting contest, and the rest is history.

 For the Ferndale production, Carolyn Jones and Vikki Young designed costumes, Katie Pratt designed lighting, and Ian Schatz sound. Crimes of the Heart plays at Ferndale Rep one more weekend, Friday and Saturday (Oct. 23, 24) at 8 PM, and Sunday (Oct. 25) at 2.

 Coming Up:  Flush from the overflow success of its first “Speakeasy” Benefit, the Arcata Playhouse has scheduled another, on Friday, Oct. 23, with music etc. by Jackie Dandeneau and others. Details at www.arcataplayhouse.org.

 The HSU production of the musical comedy City of Angels opens at the Van Duzer Theatre for two weekends, beginning Thursday (Oct. 22) at 7:30 PM. Cy Coleman composed the music, and Larry Gelbart wrote the script.

Larry Gelbart died just about a month ago, and I’ll probably never get a better opportunity to pass on one of his jokes, that few people have heard. Gelbart was a comedy writer for TV pioneer Sid Caesar, the main writer for the TV version of M*A*S*H, and co-authored the stage comedy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, seen at Ferndale Rep in 2006.

 Gelbart and his wife, Pat, were friends with Steve Allen and his wife, Jane Meadows. In addition to hosting and inventing The Tonight Show and other comedy shows, Steve Allen wrote a series of mystery novels, and in one of them, there’s a scene with Larry and Pat Gelbart as characters.

 I spent a week hanging out with Steve Allen in the early ‘90s, shortly after this novel came out, and he told me what happened next.

 Allen sent Gelbart a note, telling him about this scene. Gelbart wrote back to thank him, and added, “this goes a long way to making up for Pat and I being edited out of War and Peace.”