"The Gods of Comedy" Laugh All the Way to Mt. Olympus and Back

The Gods of Comedy, the latest theatrical confection from playwright Ken Ludwig, is a farce writ large with such familiar tropes as mistaken identity and gender, invisible people who become visible just as they’re spilling the beans, pomposity exploded, gods mingling with mortals, and deus ex machinae who never leave the stage until a happy ending is achieved.

The audience becomes the objective third eye, in on every joke and enjoying every second of this old-fashioned romp with its shades of Coward’s Blithe Spirit and Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. With special effects (sound, smoke, thunder, lightning), evocative sets and clever one liners backing them up, a cast of seven races through two acts, bearing out the Dionysian decree, “We [the gods] don’t create; we unleash.”

Ludwig’s plot hinges on the publish-or-perish stress dogging untenured college faculty, the dean’s endless fundraising for the Humanities Department, and a predatory, aging star seeking a come-back role.

Just as the untenured junior teachers (the appealing Shay Vawn and Jevon McFerrin) discover a long-missing script of Euripides’ Andromeda, the Russian immigrant janitor (the hilarious George Psomas who triples as Aristide and Ares God of War), accidentally tips it into the trash, then decides to shred it while the audience gasps.

The desperate teacher, Daphne, can’t find the manuscript and cries out, “Save me, gods of ancient Greece!” You guessed it. Who should arrive but Dionysus, god of comedy and revelry (the ebullient Brad Oscar) and Thalia, muse of comedy and poetry (Jessie Cannizzaro, funny, but mugs needlessly). Dean Trickett (the amusing Keira Naughton) tries to hold her fundraiser together while the priceless manuscript eludes all, and the would-be star (Steffanie Leigh, witty) stalks everyone from mortal to immortal.

We won’t reveal the ingenious solution to the Case of the Missing Manuscript save to say it is cleverly conceived.

The Gods of Comedy opened May 11 and runs through June 16, and is well worth your time.