I love to read the word “screwball” in the plot description of anything I’m about to see. It implies that my brain will be asked to dial it down from the usual sardonic, rueful laughing until I cry to much lighter chortles, goofy grins and some pun-adverse eye rolls. So it is with great anticipation that I await Pioneer Theatre Company’s opening of A Comedy of Tenors this coming mid-October weekend.
Honey, I sure could use a laugh.
PTC’s production of A Comedy of Tenors is the regional premiere of the a sequel to 1986s West End Smash, Lend Me a Tenor, which is about an off-stage meltdown surrounding the production of a Verdi opera in Cleveland, Ohio. But don’t get all worried about not having seen the first installment. The word “screwball” is right in the preview blurbage, remember?
In A Comedy of Tenors, the gang from Lend Me a Tenor are back, this time in Paris, on the eve of a star-studded concert where three famous tenors are scheduled to perform together. Of course, everything that can go wrong does. There are clandestine love affairs, romantic misunderstandings and Verdi-sized egos threatening to cancel the entire concert.
Let the door-slamming, face-slapping hijinks begin.
A Comedy of Tenors opens on the Main Stage at the Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theater on Friday, Oct. 20 and runs through Nov. 4, 2017. For tickets, time and details, go to here.