Lend Me a Tenor by Ken Ludwig, about an opera star scheduled to play Othello, is one of the funniest farces ever written. Standing on the shoulders of Feydeau, with its many doors opening and closing, many misunderstandings and misinterpretations, it's constantly hilarious.
Stanley Tucci, who has had commedia training, has directed with impeccable comic timing as his actors pursue their absurdities. Tony Shalhoub tears up the stage as a harried manager, proving himself a first class farceur, and Anthony LaPaglia and Justin Bartha are right there with him. All of the women, Brooke Adams, Mary Catherine Garrison, Jennifer Laura Thompson and Jan Maxwell, go all out in powerful, uninhibited performances, and the result is a brilliant farce full of comic folderol.
Played on John Lee Beatty's many-doored two room hotel suite set, with appropriately imaginative costuming by Martin Pakledinaz, it's the most fun on the New York stage this year.
