Word: pseudolus
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Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart called their script "a scenario for vaudevillians." Zaks' triumph is to pay homage to the days of Yiddish slapstick while using actors too young to have played the Catskills. Luckily, he has Nathan Lane as Pseudolus, the role created by Zero Mostel. Though only 40 and only Irish, Lane is the mystic repository of the ancients' physical gag bag. A double take is concrete poetry when he does it, and a pratfall a plie. He also elevates some of his more plebeian colleagues. Mark Linn-Baker, no natural farceur, is at first uneasy...
...show's plot centers on the exploits of Pseudolus (U.S. Taylor), a slave trying to bargain his freedom from his master. Pseudolus sets up some romances and destroys others; he manipulates every member of his household and responds to the caprices of every player in the cast. He's also the "ringmaster" of the script's ill-conceived attempt to cast the show as a play-within-a-play...
...role of Pseudolus forces Taylor to carry most of the musical numbers, advance the plot, and deliver nearly all the punchlines. And he succeeds admirably. Taylor has an extremely friendly stage presence, largely the result of his outstanding timing. Many key jokes and puns strike the audience just right because of his ability to fit his voice and gestures to each particular instant...
...above characters must be kept ignorant of the romance between the young Philia (Margery Trimble) and Hero (Nick Aiuto), deception which Pseudolus promises to maintain in return for his freedom. The script--liberally seasoned with campus allusions--relies on sexual jokes which play mostly on the naivete of the young couple ("A virgin? Is that good?") and the frustrations of everyone else. Many of these jokes hover at the borders of good taste, but given the Kirkland sponsorship of the show, the crowd finds this appealing...
FORTUNATELY, THE SHOW never strays too far from its comic trump cards--buffoonery and lewdness. The crowd is treated to a male slave (Bob Brown) being forced by Pseudolus to don women's clothing, only to be pursued by nearly every man in the cast. The young girl Philia plays her airhead-blonde character to the hilt, unwittingly offering herself to the wrong men and ruining the schemes designed to unite her with Hero. And Pseudolus moves rapidly from character to character, passing himself off as head of the house, a soothsayer, a brothel-keeper, and, of course, Cupid...