STAGE REVIEW : Funny Thing About ‘Forum’ Cast--It’s Both Excellent and Embarrassing

Stephen Sondheim’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” with a book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, should really be credited mostly to Shevelove and Gelbart.

Sondheim’s score is one of his few pedestrian efforts, and the success of any production depends on the execution of the comic inventions between the tunes, in this totally campy view of the sex lives (mostly innocent) in ancient Rome. Even Sondheim was aware of it when he penned the show’s best song, “Comedy Tonight.”

This production at the Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage Theater is brisk, as it should be, under the direction of Jack H. Degelia. If his choreography is as pedestrian as Sondheim’s music, his staging is clever and looks just right for the almost in-the-round space.

Granted that he may have had a rather shallow talent pool to choose from, the cast ranges from excellent to embarrassing.

Howard Mango practically walks off with the whole production as Pseudolus, the slave who is trying to buy his freedom by finding a true love for his amorous young master, Hero. Mango’s comic timing is impeccable, his large, clear voice perfect for the show tunes he sings, and he knows his way around physical humor.

As Hysterium, the happily campy slave to Hero’s parents, Senex and Domina, Mark S. Woodard runs him an easy second, particularly in his solo, “I’m Calm.” These two are the prime roles in the show, and they keep things moving and the laughs coming.

Although Melinda Wilson sings sweetly and is pretty enough for the role of virginal Philia, her suitor Hero is less than a hero in Dan Howard’s performance, in spite of a voice that easily handles the songs. Joe Matarazzo and Sandy Yates Hall are good as his parents, especially Hall’s trumpeting Domina, and are fine when belting lyrics in a brash chest voice.

A good many in the company are not up to their chores, such as the annoyingly amateurish performance of Dan L. Stroud as ancient Erronius, who is made to run several times around the Seven Hills of Rome--at each pass Stroud grins at the audience and jogs off with a screeching, hysterical laugh. Degelia should have denied him this distracting, meaningless self-indulgence.

‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’

* A Long Beach Playhouse production of the musical by Stephen Sondheim (music), Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart (book). Directed by Jack H. Degelia. With Howard Magno, Joe Matarazzo, Sandy Yates Hall, Dan Howard, Mark S. Woodard, Ed Schuyler, Kathy Sullivan, Michelle Beswick, Glenda E. Hochheiser, Denise Barbara, Melinda Wilson, Dan L. Stroud and Ty Warren. Musical director: Rand Allen. Set designer: Deborah Adams. Costume designer: Don Siechert. Choreographer: Jack H. Degelia. Performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; 2 p.m. matinees on Sunday and Oct. 4 and 25. At 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach. Ends Oct. 31. $15. (310) 494-1616. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.