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KEARNEY — The 2,000-year-old sitcom.

That’s how director Jack Garrison describes “Pseudolus,” a comedic farce written by ancient Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184 BC).

“The plays by Plautus are the antecedents for situation comedies today,” he said. “It’s not like you’re going to see something strange and weird in this play because this is the same kind of material that’s being used on television today.”

The comedy is being presented by the University Theatre at Kearney. It continues at 7:30 p.m. today through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Miriam Drake Theatre.

“The show is a farce with lots of physical action,” Garrison said. “It’s a Roman play, but it’s based on a Greek play that Plautus sort of ripped off.”

Some things never change.

“The actual characters are Greek, but literally it is about Roman culture and society around the time of Julius Caesar,” Garrison added.

While performing an ancient piece of theater may seem an exercise in academic rhetoric, the work of Plautus was the basis for a 1962 hit comedy,  “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

“One of the difficulties with doing a play by Plautus is translation,” Garrison said. “All of the adapters I found had their own personal bias.”

This version was translated by E.F Watling, an English classical scholar.

“It was full of 1960s British slang,” Garrison added. “We went in and cleaned it up. It’s going to be very accessible to American audiences. We’re using idiomatic and colloquial American language.”

The original play was filled with very topical humor, so the director felt free to add current topical humor to the script.

“Pseudolus” tells the story of Callidorus, the young son of an Athenian nobleman, who finds himself in love with Phoenicium, a prostitute who is about to be sold to a Macedonian general. Callidorus’ clever slave, Pseudolus, enters into a bet with Simo, Callidorus’ father. Pseudolus will try to raise enough money to buy his master’s true love.

“It is the physicality that drives this farce,” Garrison said. “In some ways the show is very silly, and in other ways it is very accessible in that it is about a young boy who is in love with a woman that he cannot easily have. It is about how he goes about tricking the older members of the culture and society into getting his girlfriend out of slavery.”

Performing this kind of material takes great concentration.

“You can never, ever ‘coast’ because the tempo pacing of Pseudolus is so intense,” Garrison said. “The show is a great exercise for the actors in concentration on stage. The audience has to see how ridiculous these characters are.”

e-mail to: rick.brown@kearneyhub.com

WHEN AND WHERE

“Pseudolus” by Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184 B.C.) presented by University Theatre at Kearney 7:30 p.m. today through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Miriam Drake Theatre in the Fine Arts Building on the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus. Tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for seniors and non-UNK students or $3 each for a group of 10 tickets or more. For more information call 865-8417 or e-mail unkboxoffice@unk.edu. “Pseudolus” is appropriate for audiences of high school age or older. Directed by Jack Garrison with stage manager Liz Uchtman and assistant stage manager Kyle Garrelts.

CAST

Harpax — Spencer Wolfe

Charinus — Jordan Isaac

Ballio  — Jordan Peterson

Callipho – Ryan Lieb

Pseudolus — James Jelkin

Calidorus — Nate Rocke

Simo — Clinton Norgaard

Cook — Jakob Enzminger

Simia — Nate White

Xystilis — Jamie Bentley

Hedylium — Amy Jensen

Aeschrodora — Brittany Greunke

Phoenicium — Sara O’Neill

Philocomasium — Abby Claar

Philia — Kassie Wendell

Servant — Daniel Arias

Servant — Colter Lemmon

Servant — Deanne Thrush

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