About the work
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a riotous musical comedy with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim – his first work providing both score and words. The book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart draws on the ancient comedies of the Roman playwright Plautus. It premiered on Broadway in 1962 and won the Tony Award for Best Musical, with Zero Mostel in the leading role. It is an irreverent, fast-paced farce of mistaken identity, full of slapstick, wordplay and songs such as "Comedy Tonight".
Plot
In ancient Rome, the cunning slave Pseudolus longs for nothing more than his freedom. His young master Hero has fallen in love with the courtesan Philia, who lives next door in the house of the flesh-peddler Marcus Lycus – but Philia is already promised to the boastful captain Miles Gloriosus. Pseudolus promises to unite Hero and Philia in exchange for his freedom, and plunges into a web of lies, disguises and ever more absurd entanglements. Amid swapped identities, a love potion, a faked plague and a breakneck finale, one misunderstanding chases the next, until all the couples and kinships are surprisingly resolved at the end.
Cultural significance
With its vaudeville pace, bawdy humour and virtuosic comic songs, Forum established its own tradition of the intelligent musical farce. For Stephen Sondheim it was the breakthrough as both composer and lyricist, after he had previously written only the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. The opening number "Comedy Tonight" is regarded as a model of the curtain-raiser that perfectly primes an audience. To this day the show is a staple in schools, regional theatres and on Broadway, proving that clever construction and silly clowning are not mutually exclusive.