"A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" - Magic Circle's Tower Theater

Left: Final bows. On the bench, Pseudolus (Paul Fearn). In the foreground, the courtesans - left to right: Vibrata (Katherine Folsom), Tintinabula (Janey Pintar), the Gemini Twins (Amber Pierce and Kate Richardson), Panacea (Cassie March), Gymnasia (Bethany Pedersen).


This is a fun show. It brought back fond memories: I was a Protean in Woodland Opera House's "Forum", directed (I believe) by Pamela Kay Lourentzos, in 1999.

The show is done in the round at the Tower Theater in Roseville, which causes problems right away, since it is impossible to design traditional, imposing sets for the Houses of Senex, Erronius and Marcus Lycus. The Magic Circle folks used two corner stage entrances, and the primary stage entrance, for the entrances to the three Houses, and compensated for the lack of sets by painting the stage in a nice Italianate motif. Still, the spare sets and the remarkably spare stage (just two marblish benches) means the cast has to be unusually active and appealing in order to compensate for the loss.

A nice cast: unusually short, though - even Miles Gloriosus (Larry Rehrer) isn't that tall. Philia (Jenna Cook) and Hero (David McDaniel) were appealing as the ingenue leads (Jenna looks a lot like Pheonix Vaughn - Pheonix played Philia in DMTC's 2002 Forum). Brent Null was funny as Hysterium.

A fine trio of active Proteans - David "Turtle" Akona, John Large, and Ricky Zimmerman. Their cutting up was fun to watch, particularly as the Marx Bros., plus Charlie Chaplin. Unfortunately, since the roles are mostly physical in nature, with the exception of one scene (caught gambling) Zimmerman wasn't able to display his remarkable talent for mimicry.

Paul Fearn was energetic and appealing as Pseudolus, sometimes thrashing, always vociferous.

Of the dancers in the House of Marcus Lycus, I most liked Panacea (Cassie March) and Vibrata (Katherine Folsom), but with a respectful bow to the others. I really liked that Josephine-Baker-inspired double step back that Folsom's Vibrata had.

Domina (Michelle Pabst) was great! Darryl Petrig's Erronius was whimsical and enjoyable.

For some reason - perhaps the music was not loud enough? - some singers had trouble tracking the music.

I kept thinking back to the 1999 WOH Forum. One excellent thing that Pam Kay Lourentzos did with that show was to expand the "Everyone Ought To Have A Maid" number into a full-blown dance number, featuring all the women dressed as French Maids. This is what I call Progress! At least in the movie version of Forum from the 60's , and apparently also in the original Broadway script, it was just the four key men who danced and sang.

Regrettably, the Magic Circle people decided to follow the original script.

Hello, People! If we don't follow Progress, we'll all end up back in the Dark Ages of Musical Theater, living barefoot in squalid huts, singing hymnals, and dancing for farm animals! Remember the last line in the movie The Great Ziegfield (1936) :

“I’ve got to get more steps. I need more steps. I’ve got to get higher, higher!”

Hmmm....sounds like Pam Kay Lourentzos' philosophy...Don't remember that line, remember this line, regarding what might be described as Florenz Ziegfeld's philosophy, from the New York Star in 1909:

"Girls, girls, and then more girls!"