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Theatergoers looking for a night of unbridled, madcap fun have Texarkana Repertory Co.’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” coming up to satisfy that desire.

TexRep and Texarkana College’s kickoff production to an eclectic TexRep season will open in a week at TC’s Stilwell Theatre.

Set in Rome, it’s the bawdy, farcical tale of a slave named Pseudolus trying to earn his freedom.

“It’s hopefully funny, funny, funny, funny, funny,” said Michael Cooper, the musical comedy’s director and TexRep artistic director.

Opening with Stephen Sondheim’s “Comedy Tonight,” the musical is like commedia dell’arte with its clownish, buffoonish characters, said Cooper.

“Pseudolus comes out at the beginning and announces that this is a theater and we’re doing a show and we’re a company of actors,” said Cooper. “And the theater’s a temple and we worship the gods of comedy and tragedy, but tonight we’re doing a comedy. So they set up that it’s theater all the way through.”

In this kind of theater, the characters frequently address the audience.

“There is no pretense that the audience is not here,” explained Cooper. “We acknowledge that the audience is here and we want them to have a good time.”

He said for Sondheim, who did the music and lyrics, the comedy was one of the first pieces where he did everything musically and it was created when the famed Broadway lyricist was really coming into his own.

“It’s silliness with great music and hopefully a lot of fun,” he said.

The colorful costumes and set with three different houses on stage (Erronius, Senex and Lycus, the last noted a home for courtesans) enhance that fun, slapstick, silly sense of life in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

“We want it to be lively, colorful and (for the audience to) just have a good time,” said Cooper. “There will be no tears shed or we’ve done something terribly wrong. This should be just ‘come and laugh until it hurts.’”

He said it’s truly “baggy pants comedy” and vaudeville.

Cooper himself gets to play the lead character, which poses a challenge for him as a director.

“I have to watch it and be in it at the same time,” he said, noting it’s tough to do but is made easier by the talented cast.

And although it takes place in ancient Rome, the comedy has lasting appeal as the craziness ensues, explained Cooper.

“I think it has that kind of broad comedy that is eternal that goes through it,” he said, noting the audience doesn’t need to know anything about historic Rome to have a good time with the musical.

As to the actors’ approach to comedy, Cooper explained it’s tough to pull off comedy. It requires belief in the characters, he said.

“I always talk about it that it’s like the Macy’s Day Parade. You start with the same truth that you would do with any drama and then you just blow it up full of air so it becomes bigger but it still has that core of truth,” he said. “So they’re real characters. They just live in a different world than we do, a completely different reality. As long as all the characters are believing in that reality it works.”

Earlier this week, the cast and crew began running through the complete musical from top to bottom.

They showed a zesty, good-humored enthusiasm for the production as they worked on landing the perfect comic timing, zeroing in on the right energy, and making seamless transitions during the scenes.

Inspired by the writings of Plautus, Sondheim’s musical comedy is often revived. It first premiered in 1962 with a run of 964 performances. A 1966 film featured Zero Mostel as Pseudolus. (Buster Keaton even had a role in the movie.)

“For those people who keep saying they just want to come be entertained, this is it,” said Cooper.

As far as whether or not he’d recommend kids see the show, Cooper said he always thinks the best theater will have something for kids to enjoy and in this production there’s physical comedy the kids will like.

He said there’s some “naughtiness” to the humor but he believes much of it will fly over the heads of kids.

“We keep it tame and hopefully funny,” said Cooper.



(TexRep and Texarkana College present “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” on May 9-11 and May 16-18. Show times are 8 p.m. on May 9, 10, 16, and 17 and 2 p.m. on May 11 and 18.

Tickets: $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and students. TC faculty and students with ID are $5. Reservations: 903-831-7827.

For more about TexRep, visit www.texrep.org.)