LEND ME A TENOR

For my first wedding anniversary, my husband indulged my love of live theater and took me to see the current run of Lend Me A Tenor at The Music Box Theatre on 45th Street. This version of Ken Ludwig's VERY funny farce was directed by Stanley Tucci and stars Tony Shaloub, Brooke Adams, Anthony LaPaglia and Justin Bartha. It was, in a word, HILARIOUS! Just great fun all around. The actors were clearly having a great time and Stanley Tucci's directing was superb.

One of the things I love about watching comedy is also one of the things that scares the crap out of me when it comes to directing comedy, which is that you need to walk a very narrow line. You never want to push for a laugh but at the same time sometimes you need to go pretty far out on the edge to get the laugh. If you don't know where that line is, then regardless of how hard the actors are trying, it can be a pretty interminable hour and a half. If the audience isn't laughing, you've got nothing. In my opinion, drama is much more forgiving. What I thought Stanley Tucci did marvelously was walk that line. He knew exactly how to direct this comedy and there were some gags in this show that I will not give away here but that were literally "fall out of the chair" funny. (At one point, I did in fact slip out of my chair laughing.) One last thing, at live theater, although people don't usually get out of their seats before the house lights come up, I definitely recommend staying through the curtain call and not bolting as soon as the lights go down on the show. Lend Me A Tenor has a brilliant gag as part of it's curtain call which is truly not to be missed.

Seriously folks, if you get a chance and you want to laugh, go see this show.