Press Release

Cleveland’s Classic Theater Company Commences 45^th Year with a Comic Coupling of Sondheim and Shakespeare

August 15, 2006
GLTF’s resident company of actors performs both A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Love’s Labour’s Lost in rotating repertory to open the Festival’s 2006-07 season.

CLEVELAND, OH – Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF) will commence its 45^th season with a Fall Repertory that features Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical farce A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Forum) and William Shakespeare’s rarely produced classic comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost (Loves). The productions will be performed in rotating repertory at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center, September 15 – October 21, 2006. The Fall Repertory features a single company of nineteen actors performing two alternating plays on the same stage over six weeks. Victoria Bussert will direct A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Drew Barr will direct Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Fall Repertory is presented with generous support from American Greetings, National City and the Kulas Foundation. Media sponsors for the Festival’s 2006-07 season are Cleveland Free Times, WCLV 104.9 and WCPN 90.3 ideastream.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled with the company that we’ve been able to assemble for our Fall Repertory,” remarked Charles Fee, the Festival’s Producing Artistic Director. “I will tell you that it takes an extraordinarily talented group of actors to be able to perform a great work of Shakespeare on one night and then switch gears completely to perform a Broadway musical by the legendary Stephen Sondheim the following evening. It’s going to be a real treat for our audience to witness this new musical facet of our resident company.”

The 2006-07 Fall Repertory opens with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. A musical toga party of epic, comic proportions, Forum traces a day in the life of Pseudolus – Rome’s craftiest slave. Armed with the witty lyrics and toe-tapping tunes of legendary composer Stephen Sondheim, the wily philistine Pseudolus struggles to procure a beautiful courtesan for his master in exchange for freedom. With a zany cast of unforgettable characters and an infectious, vaudeville energy, Broadway’s greatest farce delivers triumphantly on the promise of its signature song, Comedy Tonight. Forum is based on the book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart.

William Shakespeare’s rarely produced classic comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost completes the Festival’s Fall Repertory pairing. In Loves, a King decrees that his court be free of women so that he and his men may study without distraction. All is well until a beautiful princess and her delectable entourage pay a visit and put the men’s resolve to the ultimate test. Love letters gone awry set in motion a series of hysterical misadventures which turn the court topsy-turvy in this Shakespearean feast of language.

GLTF’s forty-fifth artistic company features a dynamic combination of familiar faces and notable firsts. Veteran Festival artist, Victoria Bussert will celebrate her twentieth anniversary of collaborating with Great Lakes Theater Festival when she directs Forum. Forum represents the first musical theater offering in a GLTF season since the company’s 2003 production of Anything Goes which was also helmed by Bussert. Local designer and chair of the Baldwin-Wallace College Theatre Department, Jeff Herrmann, a new addition to the Festival family, will create the setting for the production and mark the first time that a Cleveland scenic designer has graced the Festival main stage since GLTF moved to the Ohio Theatre in 1982. Rounding out the Fall Repertory, Cleveland favorite Drew Barr will return to GLTF for the fifth consecutive season as a director to stage Love’s Labour’s Lost after acclaimed GLTF productions of The Taming of the Shrew (2004) and You Can’t Take It With You (2005). Barr has directed in each year of Fee’s tenure as GLTF Producing Artistic Director.

“We are thrilled to celebrate our 45^th year of producing Shakespeare and the classics this season,” said Fee on the occasion of the Festival’s milestone. “On behalf of our entire company, I’d like to thank Northeast Ohio for supporting the Festival for an amazing four and a half decades. The commitment of this region has been extraordinary and is a testament to the hunger in our community for live theater and the classics. This season is the beginning of an exciting new era for Great Lakes Theater Festival – one which will set the course for the future of this company. If you thought the last forty-five years were great, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Opening Night performances of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (September 16^th) and Love’s Labour’s Lost (September 30^th) have been scheduled for Saturday evenings with preview performances of both productions scheduled for Friday nights. Curtain times for all evening performances will remain at 7:30 p.m., with a 1:30 p.m. curtain time for Saturday matinees and a 3:00 p.m. curtain time for Sunday matinees. Both productions in GLTF’s Fall Repertory will continue to offer sign interpreted and audio described performances as well as the popular Director’s Night and Playnotes pre-show discussion series.

Single tickets for Great Lakes Theater Festival productions range in price from $22-$56 (Student tickets $13 – any performance / any seat) and are available by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online, by visiting the Playhouse Square Center Ticket Office or any Tickets.com outlet located within all Tops Friendly Markets. Groups of ten or more receive discounts as do educators and students.

Since 1962, Great Lakes Theater Festival has brought the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in Northern Ohio. The first resident company of Playhouse Square Center, the Festival has called the Ohio Theatre home since 1982.

At A Glance

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

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

Plain Dealer
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Comedy each night in riotous Forum
Tony Brown, Plain Dealer Theater Critic

Forget the forum. Get thee, ASAP, to the Ohio Theatre, where there are more funny things happening than you can shake the back end of a toga at.

Great Lakes Theater Festival specializes in Shakespeare. “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” by Burt Shevelove, Larry Gelbart and a young Stephen Sondheim, is a 1962 musical sex farce.

As unlikely as this pairing might seem, it’s a match made in ancient Rome. And also the most convulsively funny and sharply staged locally produced musical comedy in years.

“Forum,” at the dawning of Great Lakes’ 45th annual season, offers the most solid evidence yet that the vision of producing artistic director Charles Fee of a single company of players performing as an ensemble is coming to beautiful fruition.

Appropriately, “Forum” is directed by a woman who has been with Great Lakes since long before Fee showed up. Victoria Bussert, a 20-year company veteran, brings just the right blend of moxie, comic chops and bawdiness.

But it is the cast that makes “Forum” an utterly zany delight. After having performed the show in the summers of both 2005 and ’06 at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, which Fee also runs, they’ve been honed to a farcical edge.

These are classically trained actors with skills that fit “Forum” like a snug Roman sandal (except that in this production, they mostly wear high-top Converse All-Stars).

As silly and lightweight as “Forum” is, it also is based on Plautus, the ancient Latin comic playwright who also served as one of the main sources for Shakespeare’s comedies.

“Forum,” about a clever slave who tries to win his freedom by fixing up his master’s son with the whore next door, has more in common with “The Comedy of Errors” than a Broadway musical.

And these actors know it, taking to the broad comedy (pratfalls and pendulous breasts), the deft wordplay and the wink-wink sex with plenty aplomb.

Zero Mostel and Whoopi Goldberg have played Pseudolous as larger-than-life.

At Great Lakes, the protean Tom Ford (wearing Cleveland Indians boxers, which he exposes at a completely appropriate moment) makes the character an Everyman, bringing him down to earth without losing a whit of earthiness.

Ford is just the beginning. There’s Aled Davies’ leering Senex, Laura Perrotta’s overly endowed hausfrau, Jeffrey Hawkins’ hysterical Hysterium, Dudley Swetland’s maniacally doddering Erronius and Scott Plate’s stone-statue Miles Gloriosis.

Special mention must be made of the bulky David Anthony Smith, cross-dressed in a tiny thong as prostitute Gymnasia, and Wilson Bridges, Dougfred Miller and M.A. Taylor as three clowns who play various eunuchs and soldiers.

One could go on; all 17 performers deserve credit for this precision-built laugh machine.

What they’re pulling off, you begin to realize, is nothing short of a celebration of theater itself.

That is exactly what “Forum” should be. But it is rarely celebrated with the gusto and the effortless-looking expertise at Cleveland’s wild and witty classic company. As they used to say at the forum in ancient Rome: Thumbs way up, dude!

The Cleveland Free Times
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Majestic Gershwin, Jesting Sondheim: Beck’s Porgy Laudably Strives As GLTF’s Forum Bawdily Thrives
By James Damico

(Split review. Only Great Lakes Theater Festival specific information has been included below. Other content was omitted.)

Coming at the opposite end of another famous composing career, the 1962 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum marked Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway debut as combined composer-lyricist. Written long before any of his now-standard deep-dish, often moodily unmelodic musicals, this collaboration – with book by crack comedy-carpenters Larry Gelbhart and Burt Shevelove – has only one pretension: Get every laugh you can possibly wring out of the farcical material. And, in its most thoroughly satisfying effort in some while, Great Lakes Theater Festival has mounted a shamelessly gaggy production that wrings the hell out of that bell.

Loosely modeled on ancient Roman comedy, Forum is more expressly indebted to burlesque and vaudeville sketch tradition. The skeletal plot has Roman slave Pseudolus guaranteed his freedom if he can wheedle fair virgin Philia out of a marriage contract with a superstar warrior and into the cuddle of his young master Hero. Indubitably, all manner of seriously unserious complications ensue, involving discombobulated courtesans, servants, soldiers, a lecherous father, a haggish mother, found lost children, et alia, before everything and everyone gets happily sorted out.

The show was originally crafted around the comic talents of Zero Mostel as emcee-ringmaster Pseudolus. Thus, there’s much direct address to the audience, anachronistic wisecracks are encouraged, and the music is at the mercy of the clowning. Considering that last restriction, Sondheim’s score is impeccably serviceable – especially in its witty, word-drunk lyrics. The rousing opener, “Comedy Tonight,” is Forum’s best-known song, but others undeservingly neglected are the wry love ballad “Lovely” and the bouncily bawdy “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid.”

The evening is a definite no-show, however, without a technically agile and naturally funny lead, which GLTF has in Tom Ford. A shticky blend of wise guy, elf, jester, fixer and schlimazel, he both connivingly drives the proceedings and hysterically hangs on as they spin out of control.

The beauteous Laura Perrotta exults in her transmogrification into a pendulously-boobed harridan; her henpecked hubby Aled Davies is a dithering delight, and the always able Jeffrey Hawkins’ harassed servant displays the rubber-limbed pratfall skills of a silent-screen comedian.

Utterly captivating in what would otherwise be throwaway roles as the young lovers, Matt Lillo turns average-guy into unprepossessing charmer, and newcomer Kate Rockwell is a stunning find – sweetly gorgeous and ditzily adorable.

As a Victoria Bussert-directed project, the occasion is special in a couple of ways. Forum’s raunch, flash and headlong pace are ideally suited to her taste and abilities. This is the director’s first off-campus musical in a not overrun with age-challenged college students from the theater program she heads at the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory.

How refreshing. A stage full of professionally experienced, accomplished performers who, besides not having to be carded at the neighboring Star’s bar, actually approximate the maturity of the characters they’re meant to embody. Hey, could this daring wrinkle start a trend?

Cleveland Scene
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The Empire Shtick’s Back: Rome falls again in a fine and frisky Forum
By Christine Howey

As scientists further explore the inner workings of our DNA, perhaps they will stumble upon a physiological explanation for why audiences always applaud a kick line. Set up a few actors onstage, get them to kick roughly in unison, and ticket-buyers clap as reflexively as Pavlov’s dogs on a Snausage buzz.

Linear leg lifts are surefire crowd-pleasers, and that’s also an apt description of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, the slapstick bundle of hilarious fluff now being presented by the Great Lakes Theater Festival. By combining a passel of vaudeville turns with a loose and bawdy plot involving scheming slaves and pompous patricians in ancient Rome, the comedy chestnut from the early ’60s is brought to vivid life by a boisterous cast.

Of course, with a book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart (he wrote a lot of the TV series M*A*S*H), and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, this is a hard show to screw up. But it can be done, since there’s a tendency in such a no-holds-barred production to try too hard to be comical and wear out your welcome by the middle of the first act. This group, under the skillful direction of Victoria Bussert, never makes that mistake.

For all its crazy shenanigans, Forum actually has historical roots dating back to a Roman named Plautus, a playwright in the third century B.C., who wrote vulgar comedies to please audiences who got their jollies from watching vicious dogs tear apart a live bear chained in a pit. In short, these were not patrons primed for subtlety. So he filled his plays with gags, wordplay, and damn near anything else that would keep them in stitches.

In this updated version, the slave Pseudolus is trying to win freedom from his master Hero, the young and fairly dim-witted son of Senex and Domina. Hero has pledged to cut Pseudolus loose if the slave can hook him up with Philia, a comely courtesan (okay, hooker) from Crete, who appears tantalizingly in the window of the brothel next door. From that basic story are spun many zany subplots involving the kidnapped children of Senex’s other neighbor, Erronius, who were stolen by pirates 20 years earlier; two fake Philias and one real one who’s being pursued by various horny admirers; and a drag-queen tart who’s built like Hulk Hogan.

The linchpin of all this chaotic revelry is Pseudolus, given an excellent portrayal by Tom Ford. In a role made indelible on Broadway by Zero Mostel and Nathan Lane, Ford works hard and shapes a number of funny bits, using Rolex timing to ignite his many punch lines (speaking of his master, Pseudolus whines, “Why did he have to fall in love with a religious Cretan?”). But a great comic must truly be absorbed in his absurd mission, and Ford always seems to be standing just outside his character, winking knowingly at the audience even as he cavorts onstage.

In the role of Hysterium, the dedicated slave of Senex and Domina who is prone to panic attacks, Jeffrey C. Hawkins is all exposed nerve endings as he trembles in fear of just about everything. Hawkins does a world-class swoon when he accidentally inhales a sleeping potion, and he’s actually sweet when, dressed as Philia to fool Philia’s new master, Hysterium taps into his feminine side. Aled Davies gives Senex a pleasantly randy outlook on life, while Laura Perrotta as Domina is a walking sight gag, with pendulous mammaries that look as if she’s been breast-feeding water buffalo.

In a raucous show like this, the songs don’t need to advance the story or help develop characters. So Sondheim has a blast with tunes that make sport of any topic at hand. The most familiar is the opener “Comedy Tonight,” the most joyous and infectious musical kickoff ever: “Something convulsive/Something repulsive/ Something for everyone/A comedy tonight!” And the song he gives Philia expertly sketches her vacant personality, as she trills, “I’m lovely/All I am is lovely/Lovely is the one thing I can do.” Kate Rockwell is indeed both lovely and amusing as this airheaded enchantress.

There are just a couple weak points in this powerful production: Matt Lillo, as Hero, has a singing voice too thin and soft to convey his ardor for Philia, and the gifted actor Lynn Robert Berg is oddly mellow and not particularly funny as the brothel owner Lycus.

But there are so many other laughs that it’s not as though anyone would notice. Even Dudley Swetland, in the small role of Erronius, manages to squeeze chuckles out of this old man’s doddering search for his purloined progeny. Of course, it all ends well in a show that promises “Tragedy tomorrow/Comedy tonight!”

The Times Newspapers
‘Funny Thing’ is a very funny thing at GLTF
By Roy Berko, Member of the American Theatre Critics Association

The program for Great Lakes Theatre Festival’s ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’ asks the question, “What is funny?” The answer, at least in Cleveland for the next five weeks is, ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

‘Forum’ is a musical based on two plays by Titus Marrius Plautus, who is considered to be the father of comedy in the Western world. It was Plautus who invented the devices of theatrical comedy which have lasted to this very day. Most of his techniques, such as prat falls, cross-gendered misidentities, visual double takes, having characters who are bigger than life, makes the audience laugh at them and their actions rather than with them. It’s the kind of stuff that made Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges funny.

The story follows Plautus’ standard structure. While the Master and Mistress are away, sons and slaves will play. In this case, Pseudolus, a slave who wants to be free, decides to help Hero, the son of Senex and Domina to elope with Philia, a virgin who has been sold to the nation’s greatest warrior. Chaos ensues via comical misadventures, coverups and plot twists.

The book was written by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbert, while the music and lyrics are by Stephen Sondheim. In spite of such wonderful songs as “Free,” “Lovely,” “Pretty Little Picture,” and “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid,” Sondheim’s score was cooly received by critics when the show opened on Broadway in 1962. However, the production’s run of 966 performances is Sondheim’s longest running Big Apple show. The original production starred the irrepressible Zero Mostel, who was also the lead in a moderately successful 1966 film version.

The script was revived on Broadway in 1972 with Phil Silvers, and again in 1996 with Nathan Lane as Pseudolus. Lane was replaced during the run by Whoopi Goldberg.

Great Lakes Theatre Festival’s production, under the adept directing of Victoria Bussert, is nothing short of hysterical. Bussert and her wonderful cast pull out all the stops. Every shtick and gimmick possible has been incorporated into the happenings. To add to the doings is the fine musical direction of John Jay Espino, the creative choreography of Janet Louer, Jeff Herman’s traditional scenic design and Nicole Frachiseur’s era correct creative costumes.

Usually, the role of Pseudolus is the key role in this play. However, as good as Tom Ford is in that role in this production, he is overshadowed by Jeffrey C. Hawkins whose Hysterium is hysterical! It’s worth the price of admission to see Hawkins in action.

Also adding to the laugh-fest is Dudley Swetland as Erronius, a doddering old man; Laura Perrotta as Domina, an overbearing wife and a woman with implants gone bad; Aled Davies, Hero’s father and sex-obsessed husband of Domina; and Scott Plate as Miles Gloriosis, a pompous warrior. As the star-crossed lovers, Matt Lillo and Kate Rockwell are fine. Their “Lovely” was a smile inducer. Credit also must be given to Wilson Bridges, Dougfred Miller and M. A. Taylor, the omnipresent clowns whose roles vary from eunuchs to soldiers.

Highlights include the opening number, “Comedy Tonight,” the show-stopping “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” and the delightful “Lovely Reprise.”

Capsule Judgement
GLTF’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” is a laugh delight. It’s the kind of production that audience members will totally enjoy. Congrats to Victoria Bussert and her cast and crew for a wonderful production.

Cool Cleveland
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
By Kelly Ferjutz

What fun, indeed! It’s so neat when a play – which was written with joy and wit – then receives a production that finds every smidgen of loopiness in the script and carries that to the very edge of zaniness without ever going completely berserk! Such is the treat in store for audiences with the current presentation of the Great Lakes Theater Festival, playing in rep through October 21 at the Ohio Theatre of Playhouse Square Center. The book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart with music and lyrics by Steven Sondheim are as fresh as this morning’s sunshine.

Done in lavish, warm and cartoon-y colors (set designed by Jeff Herrmann with costumes by Nicole Frachiseur) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum bubbles along, giving the impression that it’s proceeding much faster than it really is, and every moment is immensely enjoyable. There’s never a dull one anywhere making for absolutely must-see theater!

Set in 200 B.C. Rome, there are more than enough goofy characters to populate several plays, ranging from lost heirs to courtesans for sale or rent to slaves wanting to be free (maybe) to the ever-present bawdiness of a vaudeville show. It all blends together marvelously under the direction of Victoria Bussert with the assistance of choreographer Janet Louer. Wait until you see the entire cast lined up across the stage, doing a vigorous kick line! The five piece band directed by John Jay Espino is especially effective. (Listen for the sounds of a bass accordian – groovy!) Lighting by Rick Martin and Sound by Stan Kozak enhance without being obtrusive.

The acting – and the singing! – is superb throughout. Actually, the actors aren’t exactly acting – they just simply become the characters they portray, thus rendering them SO believable! When they burst into song, it seems perfectly reasonable for them to do so! Tom Ford as Pseudolus is marvelous as the master of ceremonies (so to speak) who guides us through the hilarious perils of ancient Rome. Although he’s a slave, belonging to Senex (Aled Davies) and Domina (Laura Perrotta) he wants to be free, and his actions are all undertaken with that intent in mind. Roadblocks are continually thrown in his way by – among others – handsome young Hero (Matt Lillo), the son of the house who falls in love with the beautiful ‘blonde’ Philia of Kate Rockwell, who sort of channels Marilyn Monroe but has a much better voice.

Unhappily, Philia belongs to Marcus Lycus (Lynn Robert Berg) who has sold her to the warrior Miles Gloriosis (in a deliciously bigger-than-life performance by Scott Plate). Heaven protect us from a pairing of these absolutely gorgeous air-heads! There is also another slave, Hysterium (Jeffrey C. Hawkins) who is indeed hysterical, especially while in drag, and the doddering Erronius (Dudley Swetland) doing laps around the seven hills of Rome while seeking his two long-lost children who were stolen as children by PIRATES!!!

In the minor roles of courtesans and various clowns Julie McKay, Julie Evan Smith, Katie Greiner, Laura Welsh, David Anthony Smith, Wilson Bridges, Dougfred Miller and M. A. Taylor sparkle, adding grace and humor to their antics.

Reviews: Love’s Labour’s Lost

Plain Dealer
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
It seems all city’s a stage for the Bard
Tony Brown, Plain Dealer Theater Critic

*The following review has been edited for space considerations. The original review contained content about three different local productions. Only GLTF content is posted here.

It was all Bard all the time over the weekend in Cleveland-on-Cuyahoga, with three professional theaters opening Shakespeare plays.

These plays tickle our funny bones, stir our souls, titillate our titillations and demonstrate why a 400-year-old dead guy lives on as our dearest playwright.

Together, they allowed the city’s theater community to flex its collective muscle.

At Great Lakes Theater Festival, our resident Shakespeare company, director Drew Barr uses his considerable comic skills to lead a tight acting ensemble in a romantic romp of “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”

In “M4M” at Cleveland Public Theatre, the gritty urban venue, director Craig George makes the sexual politics of “Measure for Measure” as immediate as headlines about disgraced Rep. Mark Foley.

And director David Hansen’s silent-film vision of “Hamlet” at Lakewood’s Beck Center for the Arts, with a woman in the title role, tries to hint at hidden layers of meaning in the melancholy Dane.

Labors well spent
The question at Great Lakes is a simple but timeless one: Can men live without women? You know the answer. But Barr and his company have a blast showing us why.

Sometime in the early 20th century – on a set decorated by designer Russell Metheny with surrealistic art – a king and three noblemen study and eschew the fairer sex.

But before you can say “forsworn,” a princess and three maids show up, and the men set about on all manner of not-so-clever deceptions to woo them.

Keeping it fresh with a cavalcade of witty sight gags and unexpected line-readings, Barr and his merry players (most performing at alternating shows in Great Lakes’ “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”) also revel in Shakespeare’s old-fashioned ways.

Presiding over the proceedings like a Spanish P.T. Barnum, Andrew May dons a Salvador Dali moustache, a graying hippie beard and rainbow socks to thrust sideline character Don Armado to center stage.

Of the hapless students, David Anthony Smith (who wears a thong as a whore in “Forum”) brings sage superciliousness to Berowne, who has doubts about the no-babe bit.

Among the wily womenfolk, Julie Evan Smith makes Rosaline scrumptiously independent.

And a limber Jeffrey Hawkins does a daffy-bumpkin routine as addled Costard and takes a pratfall that outdoes even his “Forum” stage-dive.

But, also like “Forum,” “Love’s Labour’s” works so thoroughly (except for a few sleepy moments early on while Shakespeare winds up for the pitch) because of an ensemble effort.

Great Lakes continues to look great, indeed.

Cleveland Scene
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Shakespeare Gets Silly: Laughs abound in the artfully enjoyable Love’s Labour’s Lost
By Christine Howey

Anyone who has attended the first day of college probably remembers that moment when we pledged ourselves to unstinting diligence in our academic pursuits. We were starry-eyed and imbued with a thirst for knowledge and truth; our intellectual focus shone bright – right up to the very second the guy down the hall mentioned the kegger in progress down the street.

Apparently, it has been ever thus, since good ol’ Shakespeare wrote a play about the same dynamic in Love’s Labour’s Lost. This oddball romantic comedy (all the lovers don’t scurry off and get married at the end) is a feast of wordplay, and the crew at the Great Lakes Theater Festival leaves not one chuckle, chortle, or titter untickled. In some ways it’s actually funnier than A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, with which it’s sharing this repertory season.

In this thinly plotted lark, the King of Navarre and his three lords have committed themselves to pursuits of the mind and decided to forgo such pleasures of the flesh as drinking, feasting, and so forth. But they’ve barely broken the spine on their dusty tomes before the sultry Princess of France and her trio of hot ladies-in-waiting hit town. Then it’s cue the hormones and duck for cover.

Meanwhile, a crazy Spaniard named Armado is incensed that a local doofus named Costard has been diddling a girl he’s been eyeing, the milkmaid Jaquenetta (you know she’s a milkmaid because she’s lugging a milk-bottle carrier, circa 1955). To get into Armado’s good graces, Costard agrees to deliver the Spaniard’s love letter to the dairy queen; at the same time, one of the lords tells him to deliver a mash note to one of the princess’ ladies. Of course, the notes are switched, and the story is in full gallop.

This production simply oozes wit and charm. The set itself, designed by Russell Metheny, is inspired by the surrealist paintings of René Magritte, featuring recognizable parts of his paintings (a blue sky with clouds, inside an eyeball). And one character even echoes that artist: a raincoat-clad schoolmaster, Holofernes, whose rigid posture recalls the painting in which it’s raining a deluge of similarly dressed men.

Director Drew Barr exploits every opportunity for laughs in this wordy but often surprisingly hilarious script. Keeping the lords and ladies amusing, but under control, he lets certain other characters cut loose and fire their comedy cannons in all directions.

As randy Armado, Andrew May is a walking orgasm, squirming at the thought of Jaquenetta, tossing his long silver locks and walking as if he’s always stepping gingerly over a mud puddle. He slathers on the quirks with a heavy hand, but they all work beautifully. And when he refers to “the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon,” it’s made doubly laughable by May’s supercilious mien.

Just as good is Jeffrey C. Hawkins as the dim-witted Costard. Dressed in overalls and looking like Bill Murray in Caddyshack, Hawkins executes some sublime pratfalls and never overplays this peasant’s common ways. And Dougfred Miller is a treat as the rigid, pedantic schoolmaster, lecturing on the vagaries of English pronunciation (debt should be sounded as “deb-t,” not “det”) and always accompanied by one squeaky shoe.

Perhaps the single funniest scene is when the lords decide to come on to the ladies by masquerading as a delegation of Russians. As a greeting, one Russki murmurs they have come for “piss and yentil veezitation” (translated immediately as “peace and gentle visitation”). Clued in ahead of time, the women have also changed their identities and hidden their faces, and the ensuing roundelay of teasing and dancing is a delight. Suffice it to say that if you’ve never seen four horny Muscovites get funky, it’s not to be missed.

Tom Ford and Laura Perrotta hit the right notes as the King and Princess, conveying their positions of authority with the ease born of royalty. And all the lords and ladies keep the fun rolling, smoothly carving out individual personalities. Among these equals, David Anthony Smith is particularly entertaining as Lord Berowne, the first of the men to break down and start chasing skirts.

Costume designer Kim Krumm Sorenson keeps the aura of surrealism going by dressing the men in modern business suits in one scene and 1930s knickers in the next. Subtle touches of sound effects and snippets of music add to the artful ambiance.

Even though it seems apparent that all the lords and ladies will pair off at the end, Will veers off in a different direction, surprising even Berowne, who comments: “Our wooing doth not end like an old play: Jack hath not Jill.” But even without the romantic ending, this is quite a Labour of love.

The Cleveland Free Times
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Shakespearean Mélange a Trois: A Bardic Orgy of Drag, Gender-bending and Shaky Celibacy
By James Damico

*The following review has been edited for space considerations. The original review contained content about two different local productions. Only GLTF content is posted here.

At least temporarily, the North Coast’s globe-trotting theater-goers could well be changing their tunes to “No Canada” and “Drool, Britannia.” Rather than forking out for gas, airfare and exorbitant accommodations to brush up on their Shakespeare at Stratford across the lake or London’s National Theatre, local Bardolators can currently satisfy their jollies with a thrifty commute between Playhouse Square and Lakewood.

In a rare conjunction, three area theaters have just simultaneously debuted a Willie work and, even more coincidentally titillating, each production bears content and/or an interpretation italicizing the play’s sexual nature or potential. Great Lakes Theater Festival is staging Love’s Labour’s Lost, in which a king and his stud buds take an unlikely vow of celibacy. Beck Center imagines the consequences of a secretly female Hamlet. And Cleveland Public Theatre tackles the lust-driven machinations of Measure for Measure, with a sextet of male performers gender-bending and straightening through 18 roles.

With theaters closed by plague fears, Shakespeare quilled Love’s Labour’s in 1593 as a private entertainment for his patron, the Earl of Southampton. Never meant for general consumption, it’s a playful skit packed with roast-like takeoffs on real-life royal characters and often obscure in-jokes and allusions to contemporary events and people. Largely, though, it’s a vibrant young Willie indulging (over-indulging?) himself in his sparkling gift for verbal acrobatics – wordplay, punning, lyrical poetry.

The scanty plot has the King of Navarre coercing three horny noblemen to join him in a three-year moratorium on female companionship. The arrival of the Princess of France and her trio of attendant ladies, however, turns the compact into compost. There ensues a lovers’ rondelet of intrigue, disguises and linguistic jousting – interrupted by the farcical antics of clowns, servants and a courtly poseur full of flatulent poesy – that wittily ends with only the promise of a happy-ending group wedding sometime in the indefinitely rosy future.

Director Drew Barr places the prank in what has become the chosen ambiance for most GLTF Shakespeares – an indeterminate modern milieu, with setting, costumes and props mostly suggesting the ’50s through ’70s, and stylistic elements evoking the sparse illustration-expressionism of such influences as Magritte, Hockney and Warhol – augmented here with intimations of Jacques Tati and Salvador Dali (whom Andrew May as the windy Spanish poseur is literally made up to resemble).

In this agreeable, pastel-tinged and -toned limbo, performances are key and GLTF’s constantly improving repertory company delivers an attractive number. As Berowne, the most reluctant vower (and reputedly a sketch of, and originally played by, Willie himself), David Anthony Smith is a heartily commanding figure of masculine self-regard and cluelessness about women. Tom Ford’s King reigns with unregal but maternally appealing nerdiness, and, as the Princess’ trusty counsellor, Aled Davies is a model of silky, mischievous suavity.

Among the distaff disputants, Julie Evan Smith, as Berowne’s match, conveys a feisty readiness to be persuasively mastered, while Laura Perrotta’s Princess, mostly due to a peculiar choice of high-pitched vocal register, somewhat lacks her customary captivation. The troupe’s formidable farce chops are again represented by Jeffrey Hawkins as a pratfalling clown, Dougfred Miller’s unregenerate pedant, Neil Brookshire’s crafty page, and another of May’s patented unbuttoned, unfettered, practically unlawful frolics as the Dali-esque dimwit. An eminently competent and pleasant occasion that might have increased its congeniality with some serious pruning and a few more seriously bright ideas.

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

		Tom Ford stars as Pseudolus in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum to open the classic theater company’s 45th season. The production runs in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Douglas Mastroianni
Actors Jeffery C. Hawkins (Hysterium, left) and Laura Perrotta (Domina, right) share a comic moment in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum to open the classic theater company’s 45th season. The production runs in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Douglas Mastroianni
Actors Tom Ford as Pseudolus (left), Aled Davies (Senex, center) and Jeffrey C. Hawkins (Hysterium, right) take center stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Broadway’s greatest musical farce, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, to open the classic theater company’s 45th season. The production runs in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Douglas Mastroianni
Veteran Cleveland actor Scott Plate as Miles Gloriosis is right at home amidst a sea of eclectic courtesans in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Broadway’s greatest musical farce, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, to open the classic theater company’s 45th season. The production runs in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Douglas Mastroianni
It’s “Comedy Tonight” as Great Lakes Theater Festival’s resident acting company presents the opening number of Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Broadway’s greatest musical farce, to open the classic theater company’s 45th season. The production runs in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Douglas Mastroianni
Festival company members Lynn Robert Berg and Julie Evan Smith as Marcus Lycus and Panacea respectively steam up the stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Broadway’s greatest musical farce, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, to open the classic theater company’s 45th season. The production runs in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Douglas Mastroianni
Matt Lillo takes center stage as Hero in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Broadway’s greatest musical farce, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, to open the classic theater company’s 45th season. The production runs in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Douglas Mastroianni
Actors Dudley Swetland (Erronius, left) and Jeffrey C. Hawkins (Hysterium, right) share a comic moment in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum to open the classic theater company’s 45th season. The production runs in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Douglas Mastroianni

Photos: Love’s Labour’s Lost

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s resident acting company lives the surreal life as they present William Shakespeare’s feast of laughter and language, Love’s Labour’s Lost. Pictured from left to right are actors David Anthony Smith, Jeffrey C. Hawkins, M.A. Taylor, Matt Lillo, Dougfred Miller and Lynn Robert Berg. The production runs in repertory with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Actors Matt Lillo (Dumaine, left), Lynn Robert Berg (Longaville, center) and Tom Ford (Ferdinand, right) take center stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of William Shakespeare’s feast of laughter and laughter, Love’s Labour’s Lost. The production runs in tandem with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Actors Aled Davies (Boyet, left) and Laura Perrotta (Princess of France, right) take center stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of William Shakespeare’s feast of laughter and language, Love’s Labour’s Lost. The production runs in repertory with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Festival company members Andrew May as Don Armado (left) and Kate Rockwell as Jaquenetta (right) make a love connection as Jeffrey C. Hawkins as Costard observes in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. The production runs in repertory with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Actors Lynn Robert Berg (Longaville, left), David Anthony Smith (Berowne, center) and Tom Ford (Ferdinand, right) take center stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of William Shakespeare’s feast of laughter and language, Love’s Labour’s Lost. The production runs in repertory with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Festival favorites Andrew May as Don Armado and Dougfred Miller as Holofernes share a comic moment in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of William Shakespeare’s feast of laughter and language, Love’s Labour’s Lost. The production runs in repertory with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Laughter erupts as love letters go awry in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of William Shakespeare’s feast of laughter and language, Love’s Labour’s Lost. Pictured from left to right are actors Laura Welsh, Laura Perrotta and Julie Evan Smith as Katherine, the Princess of France and Rosaline respectively. The production runs in repertory with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
		Actors Laura Perrotta (Princess of France, left) and Dudley Swetland (Marcade, right) share the stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of William Shakespeare’s feast of laughter and language, Love’s Labour’s Lost. The production runs in tandem with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center through October 21. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni