A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
by Amee Thompson, Outpost contributor
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"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" satirizes the escalating complications for Pseudolus's attempt to win his freedom by arranging the elopement of his brainless, virginal young master, Hero, and the equally brainless, still virginal courtesan, Philia. She has been sold but not yet delivered to the army captain Miles Gloriosus.
When Miles shows up to claim his bride, Pseudolus's plans to stall the captain are interrupted by the arrival of, first, Hero's lecherous father, Senex, whom Philia mistakes for Miles, then Hero's battle-ax mother, Domina, who feels her husband is courting a young lady behind her back, and finally Erronius, a cheerfully muddled old man who has been off searching for his some and daughter, stolen 20 years before by pirates. Add to these characters: Hysterium, a fearful slave blackmailed by Pseudolus into acting as his accomplice, and Lycus, the slave master who lives next door with Philia and the other courtesans.
In what seems to be no time at all, Pseudolus is masquerading as Lycus, there's a funeral featuring a corpse not really dead and three different Philias are tearing around the stage more or less at the same time. At one point, four separate stories are hanging in the balance. Erronius, advised by a soothsayer, Pseudolus in disguise is told to walk around Rome's seven hills seven times, and will find his long lost children by the time he has completed this journey.
Park Superintendent Becky Mills estimates that more than 87,000 people visited the park in 1996, making it the sixth least visited national park out of 50, a marked increase from the year before when the park was listed as the third least visited. Many visitors enjoy the small numbers of people that travel to the park and find the low numbers beneficial to the park's beauty.
One such person is Sacramento resident Karin Winters who visited Great Basin for Labor Day weekend. Winters says the lack of visitors is one of the things she enjoyed most about her visit. "Probably my favorite aspect of the park is how few people go there.
Posted October 11, 1998
Copyright 1998 Nevada Oupost