Nearly a half-century after its first appearance on Broadway, the Stephen Sondheim-Burt Shevelove-Larry Gelbart musical farce,
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, now receiving a sprightly revival at the Goodspeed Opera House, continues to do its creators proud. Powered along by Sondheim's scintillating array of songs, the material indefatigably amuses -- and director Ted Pappas has wrested every last laugh from the script. In fact, the production packs in so many visual and aural treats, it's hard to take them all in at once.

It helps that Adam Heller chooses to play it cool but warm, rather than desperate, as Pseudolus, the ingenious Roman slave who sets the various collidin[...]