How 'A Funny Thing' happens

When Jason Southerland decided to produce "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" as the opening show in Boston Theatre Works' 10th-anniversary season, he was thinking big - and small.

" 'Forum' is a big musical many people know," he says of the show, which runs at the Boston Center for the Arts' Plaza Theatre through Oct. 20. "Our challenge is to capitalize on its big presence while staging the show effectively on a small stage."

The company's artistic director needed to find the right person to lead the Stephen Sondheim musical, as he'd be directing "Love Kills" in New York. "I wanted a grown-up who knew how to deconstruct it without tearing it apart," Southerland says.

He found Erick Devine, a teacher, director, and veteran Broadway performer who's played featured roles in "Seussical" and "Ragtime" in addition to directing and staging "Candide" and "HMS Pinafore" (both with Kristin Chenoweth), "Anything Goes" (with Kelli O'Hara), and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (with Cathy Rigby).

New to Boston as a director, Devine says it was easy to slip into rehearsals here. "I didn't know any of these actors before I came to auditions," he says by phone on his way to Boston, "but we've had no trouble getting to work. I come to the play as an actor who's always directing shows in my head, even when I'm just a performer in it. I've also done a lot of teaching, and I love the analytical part of that job. All of those pieces come together when you step up to direct."

With his carefully trimmed mustache and beard and balding head, Devine has a distinctive character actor's appearance; when you meet him, you know you've seen him in something before.

At the production's first technical rehearsal, he is authoritative but low-key, patient with lighting changes and listens carefully to problems and suggestions from the actors. But when there's a break, he doesn't hesitate to call over an actor and give specific notes about how to make a scene play more smoothly.

"This is the third time I've worked on a production of this show," he says, "and the jokes still make me laugh. It's so well-written it doesn't need a lot of bells and whistles to dress it up."

"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," which features a book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart ("M*A*S*H"), is set in ancient Rome. A slave named Pseudolus tries to earn his freedom by helping his master get the girl of his dreams. Along the way, Shevelove and Gelbart weave old-fashioned slapstick and borscht belt humor into the boy-meets-girl story.

For this stripped-down production, Devine reduced the cast from 18 to 15; the band consists of piano, trombone, and flute. "Jason wanted to find a way to do some of the music right onstage," says Devine, "so the three players act like the courtesans' house band, and I came up with the idea of working percussion instruments into the set."

Trimming a show back can feel shocking, but Devine says productions are often built up so much the essential story gets lost. "Sometimes getting back to basics brings out the best in a show," he says. "Having been with 'Seussical' from the first reading all the way to Broadway, I know what it's like to feel like the show isn't going in the right direction."

In rehearsal, cast members, including Neil A. Casey as Hysterium, Bill Gardiner as Pseudolus, and Elliot Norton Award-winner Richard McElvain as Senex, navigate Jenna McFarland's set. Although the space is tight, everyone seems to have plenty of room. "The key to this comedy is movement," says Devine. "The set requires three doors, and we have that, but we don't need three complete houses to be attached to them."

The set does appear to be made up of just three doors, but built in and around various set pieces are cymbals, metal rings, wind chimes, and tambourines. For McFarland, the musical component added an extra challenge to her job.

"I'm limited to using set pieces that make noise," she says, "but as I began to play around, I found it wasn't at all limiting but lots of fun." McFarland has a potted tree that transforms into a drum. "They need ladders to get up to a roof," she says, "but the rungs of the ladder can be played like a drum, so I have one metal ladder and one wooden ladder to create different tones."

And no matter where the instruments are, Devine knows what to do. "We just have to be funny, that's all," he says.