The Prologue
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum is probably the funniest of all farces written for the stage and its roots happen to be the oldest. Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart’s inspiration for the book came from the works ot Titus Maccius Plautus, a Roman playwright of the third and second centuries BC (254 to 184 BC to be exact). Twenty one of Plautus’ comedies, themselves possibly translations or adaptations of Greek originals, still survive. Their plots have all the elements of traditional farce; mistaken identity and disguises set in dubious situations and settings. One, Menaechmi, was the basis of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.
In A Funny Thing ... it is Plautus’s characters and locales and, of course, his period that are the foundation of a show that otherwise has an entirely original story line. Even the fact that this wonderful farce also happens to be one of the few shows that really lives up to its musical comedy billing does not move too far from its Roman origins as Romans were very adept at interpolating songs to give a play’s plot some emphasis or to act simply as a respite from the frantic goings on.
Burt Shevelove
Harold Prince
The Beginnings
Getting A Funny Thing ... onto the stage was a long and troubled process—part of which has become Broadway folklore and a lesson on how an out-of-town flop can become a hit on the old ‘White Way’, and indeed everywhere else it has ventured.
Bert Shevelove had first delved into the works of Plautus when he was at Yale and he suggested them as a possible subject for a musical to the young Stephen Sondheim to work on directly after his Broadway debut as a lyricist in West Side Story. Shevelove had himself started as a lyricist and had staged and co-authored the revue Small Wonder which ran on Broadway and another, Excursions which had closed out of-town. Believing that lyric writing was no longer for him he had joined up with Larry Gelbart to write for top television comics of the day and his original concept for the show was to some extent an extension of this for it was to star a set of comic vaudevillians. They had in mind Phil Silvers, the legendary Sergeant Bilko on television and a ‘top banana’ of the vaudeville circuits, to head the cast.
The eventual producer of the show was to be Harold Prince, but he only became involved after David Merrick, who originally optioned it, was persuaded to release the rights by the authors because he was delaying its production. Prince sent the script to Phil Silvers who turned it down because, Hal Prince believes, at the time ‘all those togas didn’t seem funny to him’. The script was seen by a lot of people none of whom were interested, they even offered it to the American Theatre Society, a board made up of producers and theatre owners, for Theatre Guild subscription in Washington, but they did not even accept it for consideration. In the end Prince raised the money himself through one hundred and fifty backers.
George Abbott
Stephen Sondheim
Jerome Robbins, who had staged West Side Story, was set to direct but he wanted considerable re-writes and was reluctant to set a specific rehearsal date. It had been originally scheduled for the autumn of 1961 but Robbins decided the material wasn't ready and he left. George Abbott came and listened to the book read by Gelbart and Shevelove and the score sung by Sondheim—and he agreed, but only after reading it himself for he had not been impressed with what he had heard! His commitments meant the show had to be put back to 1962 and Sondheim went off to write the lyrics for Gypsy. Tony Walton was contracted to design sets and costumes and most of the other performers were signed up.
But, they were still without a star. Prince sent the script to Milton Berle—who was announced—but he wanted too much money and too much involvement. Zero Mostel, the eventual Broadway star of the show, was Prince’s idea but the authors were against him and they auditioned Red Buttons and others. They even invoked the Dramatists Guild contract which gave them approval of casting and threatened to withdraw the piece. The problem was that Zero Mostel was not the vaudevillian they had written the show for; he was an actor who had spent years in clubs and had made it big on Broadway with the play Rhinoceros. But, there was a connection with George Abbott for in 1946 he had appeared in Beggar’s Holiday which Abbott had directed. Abbott took Prince’s side and in the end the authors agreed, albeit reluctantly, to go along with Mostel. And, Prince thinks the fact that he was an actor helped. ‘The story prevailed and I think the show was a greater success because of it.’
George Abbott had already served half a century on Broadway when he joined A Funny Thing .... . He was Broadway’s leading director of farce and had directed, produced and written the 1938 musical based on the Shakespeare (and Plautus) play A Comedy Of Errors called The Boys From Syracuse. As he tells the story ‘I entered this project late, and I found the authors almost swamped under half a dozen versions of this play. I took all the scripts up to the country and made such savage cuts that I feared my new associates would be horrified. Instead, I received heart¬warming words of thanks. However, our problems were not over. The audience laughed at this show, but they didn’t like it, and it was only after great travail—in fact, not until the last week of our tryouts in Washington—that we pulled it together and found a way to make the people out front laugh with us as well as at us.’ Prior to its pre-Broadway try-out it had had a triumphant gypsy run-through but when it opened a week later in New Haven it just died.
Zero Mostel as Pseudolus, photographed during the New Haven tryout
New York Public Library, New York
Flyer for the Washington tryout season
ebay / broadway!!!
Everyone was baffled as to why and in Washington the respected critic Richard Coe even suggested closing the show prior to Broadway. As it turned out the problem was the opening—an opening that cost Hal Prince and the backers $100,000. Originally the curtain rose to a Jack Cole choreographed ballet to the song ‘Love is in the Air’. Sondheim succinctly explains the problem. ‘The idea of the evening was that it was low comedy, a celebration of 2,000 years of burlesque and farce situational comedy. And what you were led to believe at the beginning was that it would have the prettiness of The Fantasticks—it was so delicate and charming.’ In fact about a month before rehearsals the authors had thought there could be a problem and had written another opening number entitled ‘Invocation’ which eventually formed the basis of ‘Invocation and Instructions to the Audience’, the prologue to Sondheim’s Frogs (It) ‘essentially told the audience what the evening was all about. However, George didn’t like it (he thought it ‘unhummable’) so we stuck with the first one. When we got to Washington we called in Jerry Robbins whose first comment was “everything is fine—please change the opening scene you've got to tell the audience what the evening is about”. That is what led to ‘Comedy Tonight’.’ which was put in for the first preview in New York and ‘there were cheers and laughter throughout the entire evening at the same lines that audiences had been silent at four days earlier.’
Robbins, who was in California winning an Academy Award for West Side Story agreed to come and help. He immediately set about polishing numbers, in particular the second-act chase, but primarily he concentrated on the now famous opening. Bringing him in as play doctor solved the problem but even that had not been so straight forward as it might seem. Sondheim wanted Robbins but Prince had to get Zero Mostel’s permission. Prince knew that Mostel and another of the artists, Jack Gilford, had differed politically with Robbins in the past. Robbins had co-operated with the House of Un-American Activities Committee during the notorious communist witch hunts of the fifties and the committee had named Madeline Gilford (Jack’s wife), among others. Not surprisingly Robbins was not popular with blacklisted people like Jack, Zero and Madeline who had been ‘unfriendly witnesses’ in 1955. However, when asked if he would agree to Robbins looking at the show Zero Mostel did, and in true show business tradition and professionalism the past was forgotten and there was no unpleasantness.
There had been other changes out-of-town. Both the ingenue and juvenile were replaced (Prince had originally wanted Joel Grey and Barbara Harris to play these parts) and there were other alterations to the score. In addition to the loss of ‘Love is in the Air’ out went three other songs, namely ‘Love Story (Your Eyes are Blue)’, ‘Echo Song’ and ‘I do Like You’. Joining ‘Comedy Tonight’ as replacements came ‘I’m Calm’ and two more verses for ‘Everybody Ought to have a Maid’.
A Funny Thing . . . opened on Broadway on 8 May 1962 with an advance ticket sale of only $40,000. But it soon became a hit and ran for 964 performances. It was Stephen Sondheim’s first success as a composer—both his previous shows had been solely as a lyricist. The show won six Tony Awards for the 1962/3 Season—Best Musical, Producer, Book, Director, Zero Mostel for Best Actor in a Musical and David Burns for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical. Amazingly Stephen Sondheim was not even nominated for his wonderful score, the honour that year went to Lionel Bart for Oliver!
The Score
Oddly the reason for Stephen Sondheim’s score to be ignored by the Tony panel was probably its perfection. It so formed part of the farce that no one recognised its brilliance. To some extent it is a diversion to the plot. Sondheim explains that it is ‘used in the traditional Roman way’ and it was ‘the most difficult score I've ever had to write because it was against all my training.’ Bert Shevelove suggested the way it should be written. The songs were not to advance the plot or characters but to be quite the reverse ‘what I want them to do is to let the audience rest from the relentlessness of the farce ... they were to savour moments, take a moment and savour it in song—if you like that moment write a song about it’. Luckily for us Mr Sondheim did.
Sheet music for ‘Lovely’
ebay
David Burns and Zero Mostel singing ‘Everybody Ought to Have a Maid’. Photo by Friedman-Abeles.
New York Public Library, New York
The Epilogue
In 1972 Burt Shevelove directed Phil Silvers in the role which had originally been written for him. It was a part that he played both on Broadway and in England. He also appeared in the 1966 film version as Lycus to Zero Mostel’s Pseudolus and Jack Gilford’s Hysterium. Although the film does not succeed in capturing the total wonder of the stage show it does have an amazing cast line up that includes Buster Keaton, Sir Michael Horden and Michael Crawford.
