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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

• Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart
• Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
• Directed by Des McAnuff
• Starring Bruce Dow
• At the Stratford Shakespeare Festival

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a celebration of all the staples of low comedy that have been passed down generation to generation from the ancient Romans to us. As Comedy Tonight , the famous opening song to the 1962 musical, accurately enumerates: “Panderers! Philanderers! Cupidity! Timidity! Mistakes! Fakes! Rhymes! Mimes!”

Based on the work of Titus Maccius Plautus, the father of farce and, indeed, musical comedy, Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart's script may seem slight and silly, but it is surprisingly well researched.

As the Stratford Shakespeare Festival production's dramaturge James Magruder points out in an accompanying essay, a one-liner about a Carthaginian elephant breeder named Simo being crushed to death contains both literary and historical allusions, and a Latin pun for good measure.

Stratford favourite Bruce Dow is at the centre of Des McAnuff's greased-up and guffaw-filled production as Pseudolus, a clever slave who yearns for freedom. His young master, Hero (Mike Nadajewski), has agreed to proclaim his emancipation if he can somehow hook him up with the girl next door, Philia (Chilina Kennedy).

That's a harder task than you might think because next door happens to be a brothel and the girl in question is a high-priced virgin on hold for an army captain named Miles Gloriosus (Dan Chameroy).

To escape bondage, Pseudolus will have to outwit the nervous head house slave Hysterium (Stephen Ouimette), pipsqueak pimp Marcus Lycus (Cliff Saunders) and Hero's henpecked father Senex (Randy Hughson).

McAnuff's program note claims that Forum is a “comedy with a serious core” with “a real concern for human rights and human dignity,” but thankfully he hasn't let such utter tosh interfere with his production of Sondheim's silliest musical. The Stratford festival artistic director is at his best when he doesn't overthink classics as he did with his Macbeth and his recent Guys and Dolls on Broadway. Here, on the festival's smaller Avon stage, he has obviously relaxed and decided to simply serve the text and music rather than leave his mark on them.

His cast mostly rises to the material marvellously. Chameroy was my personal favourite, positively Shatneresque as the self-regarding Miles Gloriosus, bestriding the stage like a colossal idiot. As a particularly sad-sack Hysterium, Ouimette would have had the audience in his pocket from start to finish if togas had any. Brian Tree's Erronius, meanwhile, elicited hysterics simply puffing across the stage like a locomotive.

While Kennedy has certainly proved her dramatic mettle in her debut Stratford season as Maria in West Side Story , I do think she has a particular knack for broad comedy parts like Philia; she's a scream. As the scrawny Hero, Nadajewski matches her in comedic chops and voice. (There's a fun in-joke where Hero tries to leap up onto a balcony as Tony does in West Side Story , but his feeble arms fail him.) Jordan Bell, Stephen Cota and Julius Sermonia are very versatile as the Proteans, a three-man chorus who got through a revolving door of costumes as eunuchs, soldiers, slaves. The comely courtesans are mostly eye candy, but the talented Sara Topham just couldn't resist making an impression as Panacea.

On the other hand, Hughson's Senex is only halfway there, while Saunders tries too hard to be zany as Marcus Lycus. But the character who, surprisingly, is the most disappointing is Dow's Pseudolus. Admittedly, this is only because expectations were so high for him. Dow was in all the right places at the right times and has excellent comic delivery, but he felt just one step removed from the madcap proceedings. Pseudolus's fight for freedom gives the show its heart, but here it was hard to hear it beating.

My only other complaint would be that McAnuff and choreographer Wayne Cilento sometimes ignore the lyrical context of the songs. Senex's wife Domina's song That Dirty Old Man , where lyricist and composer Sondheim tries to expand her character beyond a shrill stereotype, is completely undercut by superfluous slapstick. The bawdy song Everybody Oughta Have a Maid , meanwhile, was awfully family friendly. Senex, Pseudolus et al. actually seem to be singing about their fondness for good housekeeping rather than the other services a domestic might provide. One hesitates ever to recommend pelvic thrusts, but if ever a song needed one, it is this.

There's no denying the appeal of this Forum , however. There are delightful details hidden in John Arnone's whimsical set and even Franklin Brasz's musical direction (a quick nod to A Chorus Line ). Designer Dana Osborne's costumes are mostly what you'd expect, her only noticeable flight of fancy being to make one courtesan (Lindsay Croxall) look like Blondie wearing bondage gear. The eighties revival appears to have taken a page from Trotsky and become a permanent revolution.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum runs at the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ont., until Nov. 1.