In a perfect world, all musical comedies would begin with a song like "Comedy Tonight" (second choice, "Another Opening, Another Show"). And they'd all be performed in big-stage, small-house spaces like that at Stage Right, where the increased suspension of disbelief demanded by close-up viewing is more than redeemed by the infectious excitement traversing ]the fourth wall at such close range. Both these factors allow us to readily enter into a universe characterized by social conditions wholly unacceptable in today's society -- slavery, for example -- though the Good Guys' mission to free those encumbered by this institution is certainly laudable in 2001. But as Pseudolus cautions us, "Morals tomorrow! Comedy tonight!".
Despite its limited casting choices -- ranging from actors barely out of school to a Miles Gloriosus closer in age to his father than his sister -- under Catherine Davis' capable direction, the Stage Right company provides an evening of venerable Plautean high-jinks culminating in the "happy ending" promised in that aforementioned ditty -- a denouement now seeming as antiquated as the days when Stephen Sondheim still wrote actual songs.
