'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum':

COURTESY PHOTO Stephen Mo Hanan, center, and the cast of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The hit musical is on stage at the Florida Repertory Theatre through March 16. Two rules of thumb all journalists know also apply to the stage: everyone has a story, and everybody wants something.

In "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," everyone's story, and everyone's burning need, crash and collide in unexpected ways that draw constant guffaws and belly laughs.

It's a musical crammed with wanton wants and desires: Pseudolus, a Roman slave, wants his freedom. Hero, his young master, wants Philia, and promises Pseudolus his freedom if he'll help him get the girl. But Philia has been sold to Miles Gloriosus, a virile Roman captain. (The vain Miles Gloriosus wants to be constantly admired, and he also wants Philia, which is why he plopped down 500 minas to purchase her.)

Senex, Hero's father, accidentally meets Philia, and winds up desiring her too. He also wants to be free of his wife, the demanding Domina, and desperately wants the sexual vitality of his youth back. (Philia, by the way, is about as intelligent as a Roman statue. But then, it isn't scintillating conversation these men are craving.)

The head slave, Hysterium, just wants everything to run smoothly - no problems, no fuss. (But of course, nothing ever goes smoothly in a farce.) Think of him as the Felix Unger of Rome, B.C. And the nextdoor neighbor, Erronius, wants his children back - they were kidnapped by pirates when only infants.

Now playing at the Florida Repertory Theatre (through March 16), "Forum" is a marked change of pace after their previous production, "Doubt," which had audience members debating matters of theology and faith long after the curtain fell.

This classic musical comedy is one glorious, continuous series of jokes and humorous situations, a farce filled with mistaken identities, intentional disguises, con games, slamming doors and madcap chase scenes. Playwrights Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove combine the Roman humor of Plautus with burlesque, vaudeville and the rapid-fire humor of the golden age of television to create something timeless. (Gelbart worked on Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" and "M*A*S*H" and Shevelove worked with people such as Red Buttons, Jack Paar, Nancy Walker and Victor Borge.)

The two, who won a Tony Award for their work back in 1963, pepper the musical with physical humor, word play, much bawdiness and double entendres. It's vulgar hilarity at its finest. They even throw in cross-dressing, funny walks and a rubber chicken.

It may be fluff, but it's clever fluff, something constructed so well that everything dovetails.

Unfortunately, at the matinee performance I attended, the audience was dead, at least for Act I. It was inexplicable; the actors must have felt as if they were performing in a vacuum. Fortunately the audience rallied in Act II, but many of the best lines seemed to sail over their heads. They were as quiet as Midwesterners at a Woody Allen festival. So it was difficult to tell whether the show's major chase scene needs to be ratcheted up in speed and intensity, or if it was just the unresponsive audience.

"Forum" boasts a large cast - 18 in all - and director Robert Cacioppo has chosen his actors well. There's not a weak link in the bunch.

Stephen Mo Hanan sparkles as Pseudolous, the freedom-craving slave. His comic timing is impeccable, and he literally throws himself into the role, rolling about on the stage. His rubber face expresses delight, shock, dismay, lust, fear and all other shades of emotion in-between.

The eight-piece orchestra, which hit more than one sour note, seemed determined to battle with Hanan when he sang. Instead of accompanying him, they drowned him out, making it all but impossible to hear many of the clever Stephen Sondheim lyrics.

Jason Parrish as Hysterium was a bundle of nerves, neuroses, and anxieties, a wire strung too tightly. You fully expected him to snap any second. He shines in his solo, "I'm Calm," and more than holds his own in scenes with Hanan. Parrish was especially funny as a cross-dressing corpse. Aaron Lake is larger than life as the muscular Miles Gloriosus, stomping and swaggering about the stage. "I am my ideal," he proclaims at one point, boasting about how he impresses even himself.

Douglas Ullman, Jr. is the perfect Hero, lovesick and callow, sweetly innocent. The object of his affection, Philia (Alesia Lawson) plays her as the original dumb blonde, her hair comic-book yellow, her head as empty as a vacant lot.

Marcus Lycus (Mark Chambers) and his courtesans provide the show's sexual flash. Chambers is the ultimate slimy businessman, a Roman pimp selling woman. The courtesans (Jessica Vaccaro, Christina Lynn Phillips, Rachel Lomax, Any Marie McCleary, Taela Naomi and Lissen Ellington) are shimmying, undulating dancing girls, fantasy pin-ups come to life.

Senex is played by Bob Del Pazzo as a befuddled, hen-pecked man who's so selfdeceived (and so in lust) that he believes a woman a third his age would find him attractive. In "Impossible," his humorous duet with his stage-son, Hero, both declare it impossible that Philia could be attracted to the other. And while she didn't clock a lot of time on stage, Margot Moreland as Domina was one of my personal favorites; she always brought zest to her scenes, yelling at her husband in a foghorn voice so cutting it would've made Ethel Merman envious.

John Brothers portrays Erronius, the neighbor, in a small but important role. His running joke throughout Act II brought a lot of laughter.

And three actors play the Proteans (Brian Bailey, Michelle Damato and John Warren), part Greek chorus, part utilitarian extras wherever needed. They were particularly funny as Miles Gloriosus's soldiers who try to hold him up when he's grief stricken. (Damato's diminutive height, especially, is used to great advantage throughout the night.)

The costumes, rented from the most recent Broadway revival of "Forum," are inspired. (Del Pazzo looks like a pink piñata.) And Richard Crowell's cartoonish set design establishes the right tone for the show. With its off-kilter arches and flimsy walls, it gives us a nudge and a wink, telling us that we're not meant to take any of this seriously.

"Forum" is wonderful silliness. Though risqué, it's not offensive. "Forum" walks the fine line between naughtiness and raunchiness, then says "What the hell" and delightfully and deliberately splashes in both puddles.

If you go

>>What: "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"

>>Where: The Florida Repertory Theatre, 2267 First Street, at the Arcade Theatre in downtown Fort Myers on Bay Street between Hendry and Jackson

>>When: through March 16

>>Cost: $38, $35 and $17

>>Info: Call 332-4488 or go to BoxOffice@ FloridaRep.org