October 2005

Dear Subscriber:

HIJINKS AND SILLINESS ABOUND as we festoon our stage with the abject madness, witty word play, and buoyant score of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  This is one of those special shows that merits multiple viewings—not to plumb the depths of its meaning —but to relish its unstoppable humor and enjoy each clever quip fresh every time. Plus, as is always the case with Sondheim, it is likely that you will discover a new rhyming scheme or pun that you haven’t heard before.

I’VE RECENTLY BECOME A FAN of HBO’s weighty new series, Rome, which sets a portion of every episode’s action at the title city’s forum. Now, it’s not hard to imagine Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar getting into trouble on this spot, but I also confess that I can visualize Pseudolus belting out the wonderfully catchy tune, “Comedy Tonight” in this bustling hub of ancient Rome. This irreverent comedy full of mirth and music indulges such flights of fancy. And why shouldn’t it? With a creative team fueled by the comic genius of Larry Gelbart of M*A*S*H fame; Burt Shevelove, producer for Jack Benny and director for Red Buttons; and the incomparable Stephen Sondheim, there is little serious in this show and a lot to celebrate.

MERYLE SECREST’S DEFINITIVE WORK, Stephen Sondheim, A Life, offers several anecdotes about this amazing artist’s first produced attempt at writing both music and lyrics and illustrates that this little bauble of a musical underwent all the same gyrations of birthing as do the megamusicals. The project’s genesis was in Shevelove, who had done a musical at Yale derived from a play by Plautus, Miles Gloriosus, or The Braggart Warrior, and had always wanted to base a musical on this classic comedian’s work. His enthusiasm for the idea spread to Sondheim after he insisted that the young composer and librettist read Plautus in translation. Sondheim aptly observed that

Plautus was the first person to domesticize comedy.  All comedy, Aristophanic, for instance, was about gods and goddesses. Nobody had ever written about husbands and wives, daughters and maids. Plautus is responsible for the situation comedy…Plautus wrote about domineering wives and braggart warriors and lecherous old men.

THIS HIGH-QUALITY, low-brow blend quickly attracted Larry Gelbart, who knew Shevelove through a writing connection with Red Buttons, and in 1958, the team set out to fill what Gelbart termed a “vulgarity vacuum on Broadway.” The task was not an easy one though, as evidenced by Gelbart’s comment: “It is as daunting to fashion a successful Broadway musical as it would have been to housebreak a dinosaur.” Director George Abbott’s first reaction to their effort was that Forum was too long: the obvious truth, since it would have run for about four hours as originally written, almost twice the desired two-and-a-half standard running time. To satisfy Abbott, Shevelove and Gelbart cut with a ruthless hand, with Gelbart later writing of the process: “There were to be ten drafts in all before we arrived at the last, merciful version of the book and the score… it’s not that we kept getting it wrong all the time. It was more a matter of never getting it right all at the same time.”  As a result though, Milton Berle, who had agreed to play the leading role of Pseudolus, claimed with some justice that some of his best scenes had been lost, and bowed out. Zero Mostel was the next choice and would eventually star in the 1966 film version as well.

SONDHEIM’S SCORE was subjected to similar review by Anthony Tommasini:

For all the talk of Forum harking back to the days of good clean farce, theatrically it is an experimental work.  It completely subverts the heritage of what is called the book show, handed down by Rodgers and Hammerstein, where the songs emerge from the plot. In Forum the songs purposely interrupt the farcical plot, giving the audience a needed break from the madcap hysterics.

THAT, SONDHEIM SAID, was because he had yielded to Shevelove’s argument that this particular musical needed the kind of songs that could be removed without making the slightest difference.  Just the same, getting the right counterpoint and contrast took endless work, and Sondheim later acknowledged that he discarded more songs from this score than he ever had to do again.

ONE OF THE BONES OF CONTENTION as the show was being rehearsed was its opening number.  Sondheim’s original composition, called “Invocation,” was rejected by Abbott, who said it was not memorable enough, not “hummable.” So Sondheim wrote something polite and charming called “Love Is in the Air,” (later moved to a later slot in the show) and audiences were not amused. When the show arrived in Washington it was panned by Richard Coe of the Washington Post, who appeared to think that the kindest thing one could do for it was close it before it reached New York. One performance played before an audience of about 50 people. Broadway veteran Arthur Laurents tracked the fledgling show throughout this try-out phase from New Haven to Washington, D.C. to New York, and in spite of the critical derision and lackluster audience response, repeatedly praised the piece and admonished his friend, Larry Gelbart, to ignore the comments and keep moving forward with the production.

AS THE NEW YORK OPENING crept closer, Sondheim, in desperation, suggested that Jerome Robbins be contacted.  Harold Prince was hesitant because he knew that this could cause personal problems for his star.  Robbins had acted as a “friendly witness” before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and one of those whom he had identified as a Communist was Jack Gilford’s wife, Madeline. Gilford was playing Hysterium, the nervous slave-in-chief.  Although Mostel, who himself had suffered from the witch hunting of the McCarthy years, was indignant on Gilford’s behalf, as Sondheim remembered it, his response was “I don’t have to have lunch with him.” Gilford was consulted and agreed to allow Robbins to be called.

ONCE THE CHOREOGRAPHER APPEARED, he quickly identified the problem. According to Sondheim, he said, “The opening number is killing the show. You open with a charming number and the audience does not know what they’re in for, that it’s a real farce. You’ve got to write an opening number that says baggy pants.” Sondheim protested, “I did write that. I wrote a number that said, “Forget war, Forget woe, you’re in for an evening of silliness.” And it had a nice twist at the end. It said “When you’ve laughed yourself silly and had a really good time go home and resume war and resume woe.”  This was “Invocation,” the song Abbott had disliked because he could not hum it.  Robbins agreed that it struck exactly the right tone. However, in the interest of diplomacy, he suggested that Sondheim rework the idea in a slightly different form. “So,” explained Sondheim, “I wrote “Comedy Tonight”, which is roughly the same song in a new guise.” Robbins also went to work and in the course of a week, created an opening number that those who remember it agree is one of the classics of the American stage. Unfortunately, years later no one, including Robbins, could remember exactly how it went, and the production was never filmed. So Robbins’ contribution lives on only as a confused impression of sight gags. Thus, at the first preview in New York, the untested “Comedy Tonight” opened the show. Sondheim recalled: “...that night the show was a hit. It turned from black to white instantaneously. The audience loved the opening number so much.” That same night, Arthur Laurents, who had followed the production from its infancy, congratulated Gelbart on the success. A grateful Gelbart thanked Laurents for his ongoing support and kind words, to which Laurents smiled and responded, “And this time I mean it.” The critics apparently loved it as well, with Forum earning Sondheim his first Tony Award for Best Musical, along with five other Tony Awards for the team in writing, directing, performing and producing.

ED STERN DIRECTS a group of merry-making Romans to delight and beguile you. Rep favorites Keith Jochim and Whit Reichert join the bawdy band as Marcus Lycus and Erronius, respectively, and you will have great fun with Bob Walton who is playing Pseudolus, Jeff Skowron as Hysterium, and Nat Chandler in the role of Miles Gloriosus. Eric Ulloa portrays the deceptively innocent Hero, Lynette Knapp is his charmingly brainless beauty, Philia, and Lynn Eldredge and John Seidman model the highs and lows of marriage as Domina and Senex.  Rounding out the raucous crowd is a bevy of lovely courtesans and proteans (one of whom is Dominic Roberts, returning from last season’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood). This fast-paced, outrageously funny show has production values that befit its outlandish mood with set design by John Ezell, lighting by Peter E. Sargent and costumes by David Kay Mickelsen, while Janet Watson provides the slapstick choreography and Darren R. Cohen directs Sondheim’s lively score. Be warned: The Proteans come armed with all sorts of schtick, squirt guns included—one never knows where their spray may hit!

IN OUR STUDIO THEATRE, our first production of the season is Completely Hollywood (Abridged). We are presenting this show featuring the Reduced Shakespeare Company, the team responsible for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) and several other wildly inventive and funny pieces, including All the Great Books (Abridged), which we are producing on the Mainstage later this season. Completely Hollywood (Abridged) is their newest effort, and they have just returned from the Edinburgh Festival where it garnered rave reviews and played to sold-out houses. The loosely drawn story of the show concerns a director who wants to make an independent film, and out of that premise flows every movie cliche imaginable. A shoot that begins as a western could easily morph into Sunset Boulevard, making it impossible to predict just what these master comedians are going to do next. As this is their newest work and they are continuing to develop it, we will play an important role in guiding the final shape of the show. Our Studio audiences are very much going to be a part of their process in making the script come to life, so don’t be surprised if some nights after the show, they may want to chat with you about the work. It’s an exciting prospect to be in on the ground floor of this kind of theatremaking. Even if the lads don’t speak with you the night you see the show, know that your reactions as an audience will be influencing how the piece will play in the future.

OUR SECOND OFF-RAMP PRODUCTION opens on October 15 with Tracy Letts’s brilliant, edgy look at modern paranoia, Bug. It won many honors including multiple Lucille Lortel Awards and Obie Awards before closing Off-Broadway just a few months ago. Set in the tight focus of a seedy motel room, the play zeroes in on the strangely intersecting lives of a young Gulf War veteran AWOL from his unit and a down-on-her-luck cocktail waitress who lives in fear of her ex-con ex-husband. The young man is convinced that the Army is using him as a human experiment in the development of microbes and believes that he has had bugs implanted in his body for the use of military science. While this fear sounds absurd initially, one of the most amazing things about this play is that as fantastical as his allegations seem, there comes a point at which we in the audience consider that his concerns may be justified. This realization is disquieting perhaps because it is so alarmingly believable. These characters are living at extremes, and the play is not for the faint of heart as it does contain strong language, some violence and blood, and a microbe or two. There is also some nudity in the show. Actually, the play is a thriller—as more and more pieces of the story are revealed, the intrigue envelops you.  You will leave the theatre amazed at this story and filled with questions about who was telling the truth and who was lying. Susan Gregg directs Bug with Bernadette Quigley, who played Elizabeth Proctor in last season’s The Crucible; Effie Johnson, who was in The Gamester; Jay Stratton, who is new to us; and local actors Gary Wayne Barker and Steve Isom.

YOUR RESPONSE to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was most gratifying. Our first Off-Ramp production, Take Me Out, had an electric reaction all over town from the press and audiences alike. It was a thrilling way to show our new programming to the community and we’re very proud of the response the show received. We look forward to sharing a busy and exciting fall with you with as we present a diverse mix of styles and ideas in our three venues. As Sondheim promises in “Comedy Tonight,” October and November at The Rep offer “something for everyone” with trips to ancient Rome, Hollywood & Vine, and the outer reaches of reality in the theatregoing threesome of Forum, Completely Hollywood (Abridged) and Bug.

See you at the theatre.

Steven Woolf
Artistic Director

P.S.:  For over 20 years, graphic artist Ken Wehrman directed the creation of the cover art used for our productions. This unique collection is now being offered in museum-quality archival reproductions and a portion of each sale will directly benefit The Rep. What a wonderful way to own a bit of Rep history. For more information, please stop by The Rep Shop.

We thank you for your generosity in giving to the Red Cross after each performance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Your donations totaled more than $40,000.00—now that’s impressive.

The Rep Presents Eve Ensler in The Good Body

The Rep is proud to present Eve Ensler, creator of the international sensation The Vagina Monologues, in her newest work, The Good Body, January 3–8, 2006 at The Edison Theatre.

Rep subscribers receive priority seating, an opportunity to buy tickets before they go on sale to the general public, and a special discount on this production. Download the mail order form below to take advantage of this exclusive offer!

Click here to download a printable ticket order form for this special offer. Order today! Tickets go on sale to the general public on November 6!