The Frogs

By all rights, a two thousand year old comedy that revolves around a debate between two dead Greeks ought to be dignified, sedate, oratorical, and utterly soporific. But the Dunster House production of Aristophanes' The Frogs is a surprisingly rollicking farce that barrels along through two painless hours, occasionally wobbling but never slowing down.

Part of the credit has to go to the translation director John Munger has chosen, a decidedly unstuffy version by David Barrett. Barrett has preserved the comedy's irreverence right down to a liberal sprinkling of puns, and he gives the cast a profusion of funny lines to exploit.

And, for the most part, Munger exploits them well. Most importantly, he keeps the show moving along at a brisk pace, crashing through gags that don't work until it comes to some that do. The plot is simple enough: Dionysus (Paul Cooper) want to resurrect a great poet to help Athens through a crisis. Accompanied by Xanthias, his slave (Walt Licht), he descends to Hades and presides over a debate between Aeschylus (John Allman) and Euripides (Tom Popovich). Aeschylus triumphs and returns to life, presumably to cure the city of its ills.

But the debate and the events preceding it are shot through with gags, word play and pure slapstick. The funniest sequences are those employing the choruses, one made up of Frogs and the other of a band of religious initiates. Here Munger is most skillful, as he breaks up great masses of potentially monotonous lines and, at one point, turns the stage into a daffy bacchanal, a kind of Attic "Hullabaloo." The choruses run the gamut from barbershop quarter to square dance, singing and chanting and generally cutting up.

With only a few persons on stage, Munger is less successful. Part of the trouble is with Cooper and Licht, who simply make their parts too much alike for any kind of interplay to develop. Lack of contrast often kills the verbal sparring between the good-time-Charlie god and his sarcastic servant. And Munger has a perverse talent for hiding one actor behind another even when the small stage doesn't make it inevitable.

But the missing contrast between Dionysus and Xanthias is resoundingly present between Aeschylus and Euripides. Allman's craggy, dignified Aeschylus plays off nicely against Popovich's sleek, shallow Euripides. Even though the debate sometimes bogs down, the philosopher and the quibbler are never confused as are the master and the servant.

The supporting roles are strong. Chris Baker plays the chorus leader with rhetorical flair, and Pat Diehl is appropriately massive, first as Herakles and late as Aecus, the doorman of Hell. The frog chorus, made up of Raker, Diehl, Popovich, and Fred Whelan, sings everything from march tunes to Christmas carols with polish. The Initiates, led by Jane Jackson, perform with fervent abandon, and in the second act create a hissing, cheering audience for the great debate.

Most of the show's faults are minor. If Munger's blocking sometimes seems aimless, if Allman is a bit stiff and Popovich a little unsteady, the production washes over it all with a wave of unselfconscious exuberance. The audience has only to lean back and laugh.