Cornell Alumni News - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

Cast of "A Funny Thing ..." lines up for one of many curtain calls from a delighted audience.
"A FUNNY
THING ..."
• Throughout rehearsals of "A Funny Thing . . .*' students
kept discovering literary aspects of the play that bore direct
relation to their own liberal studies. They learned, also, a
good deal of the history of comedy, and under Professor
Shank's direction turned it all into hilarious entertainment.
Professor Shank adds more reasons why this was an educational
musical: "The authors, Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart,
place the action in the classic street setting of Roman
comedy in spring some 200 years before the Christian era
(paying ail due respect, of course, to the enshrined literary
unities). The scattering of songs and dances throughout by
Stephen Sondheim is in strict keeping with the ancient form.
The audience is treated to a continuous parade of venerable
comic designs: the prologue, the thwarted young lover, the
ominous pimp who controls the object of the former's affection,
a wealthy rival, the pompous soldier, asides, soliloquies,
the wronged old father, the domineering mother, tempting
courtesans, mistaken identities, eunuchs, zany servants, kidnapped
children and so forth, until finally the inevitable chase
clears the air and innocence and goodness prevail while evil
wins its 'just deserts.' "
TEXT BY DONALD MAINWARING
PHOTOGRAPHS BY FRED MOHN
June 1966 17