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Lend Me A Tenor

 

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Not Just Another Pretty Farce

"By the time a child reaches nursery school, he or she will laugh about 300 times a day. Adults laugh an average of 17 times a day."   "Science of Laughter"   Discovery Health

"Angels fly because they take themselves lightly."   (G.K. Chesterton)

Since selecting Lend Me A Tenor for our 10th Anniversary main stage show, I have been getting a chuckle or two by pointing out that the play has "no redeeming social message whatsoever." As true as that may be, the value of creating unbridled laughter for our audiences is as valuable a motive as any - and in this day and age, possibly more so.

Plato's remark that "Even the gods love jokes" must be correct, for the value of laughter is recorded in sacred scripture. For example, the Koran states: "He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh." French surgeon, Henri de Mondeville (1260-1320), wrote, "Let the surgeon take care to regulate the whole regimen of the patient's life for joy and happiness, allowing his relatives and special friends to cheer him, and by having someone tell him jokes."

And then there is "Anatomy of an Illness" written in 1979 by Norman Cousins, who was diagnosed with spondylitis, an acute inflammation of the spine and given a one in five hundred chance of recovery. Many readers know what happened next - Cousins checked out of the hospital and into a hotel where he watched hours of "Candid Camera" and the Marx Brothers. He found that ten minutes of boisterous laughter resulted in two hours of pain free sleep; he continued his routine until he recovered.

So, laughter IS the best medicine. Our five senses are not enough for ideal living. We need to use our sixth sense: our sense of humor. Humor isn't about merely telling jokes; it's the way we view the world. And there is no better experience of laughter to be had than in the theatre.

Tonight's play is a farce that views the world through an absurd comic lens. Mr. Ludwig has written his play in the tradition of all wonderfully silly stuff, which aims to entertain by means of the "unlikely situations, disguise and mistaken identity, sexual innuendo, fast-paced plot, physical humor, and deliberate absurdity or nonsense." Time honored when you consider just a few of its devotees: Aristophanes, Plautus, Shakespeare, Feydeau, Charlie Chaplin, the Keystone Kops, the Marx Brothers, Peter Sellers, Brandon Thomas (Charley's Aunt), John Cleese (Monty Python), Joseph Kesselring (Arsenic and Old Lace), Jean Poiret (La Cage aux Folles), Michael Frayn (Noises Off)…I'm sure you can add a favorite or two of your own. Enjoy.

"We don't laugh because we're happy -- we're happy because we laugh."   William James

- Tobias Andersen