Is there an Erin Weaver Fan Club?
If there is, may I join?
In fact, may I apply to be an officer?
I warn you now, though: if you give me a secondary job, such as Secretary or Treasurer, I may well engineer a coup so that I can become President.
I certainly have the qualifications. For the many years that Weaver appeared at Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, New Jersey, I saw every one of her stunning and assured performances. Whether she was performing Emily in OUR TOWN or singing country in a musical that also proved that she could play a mean washboard, Weaver was always terrific.
Always.
At the Signature Theatre – not the one in New York, but the one in Arlington, Virginia – Weaver showed how spectacular she could be in A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM. Many theatergoers who left Saturday’s matinee were talking about her magnificent performance not just as they sauntered into the lobby, but also while descending the stairs. Once outside, they didn’t even seem to notice the freezing cold, for they were still talking about her splendors.
Those who know the Burt Shevelove-Larry Gelbart-Stephen Sondheim classic will wonder how a woman can make such an impression in this show. After all, the courtesan (to use the show’s euphemism) known as Philia isn’t much of a role. She takes part in a duet, has one solo, a few lines in another, and even fewer in “Comedy Tonight” (arguably the greatest opening number written during an out-of-town tryout).
However, here director Matthew Gardiner had an inspired notion. True, Philia is a virgin, but in the House of Marcus Lycus, Gardiner realized that she’s been taught to please her man from head to toe (and in between).
So, here was Philia batting her eyelashes, contorting her mouth into kisses – and doing it very badly because she’s still learning and has had no hands-on and body-on experience. The results were hilarious.
That role, however, is not the one in which Weaver shone. Kuhoo Verma portrayed Philia and ran (wild) with it. A director couldn’t ask for more than Verma aptly delivered.
Ah! That must mean that Weaver played Domina, the harridan wife of poor put-upon Senex. But wouldn’t that give Weaver an equally small role? The published text shows that Domina enters on page six, exits on page eight, and isn’t seen on stage for 57 more pages – only 25 pages from the end of the show, in which Domina hardly dominates.
Besides, Weaver’s still too young, lithe and adorable to play Domina, a part that Tracy Lynn Olivera did proud.
So, that leaves the other courtesans, doesn’t it? Well, Weaver’s chances of being one of the six was halved by Gardiner. He decided that casting men as the Gemini and a drag queen as Gymnasia would be fun. This wasn’t necessarily non-traditional casting, because in ancient Rome, such lusty same-sex possibilities were on the table (and in the bed).
What role is left? Those who remember the 1996 revival have already guessed, for they recall that in that production, Nathan Lane was succeeded by Whoopi Goldberg as Pseudolus, the wily Roman slave who, in order to secure freedom, will lie, cheat, connive and show intelligence well beyond everybody else’s.
So, yes, that is the character that Erin Weaver played. What she did with the part is what has made her entitled to a well-populated fan club.
Sure, she knocked about the stage with great comic timing, but she seems not to have listened to any of the three cast albums, for she replicated none of her forebears’ interpretations. She didn’t need them, because she has her own instincts, and wondrous ones they are.
In Pseudolus’ plea to Hero (a fine Zachary Keller) to be “Free,” Weaver landed every one of Sondheim’s witty jokes. And yet, she added a layer of longing and need as she imagined what she could make of her life if she only had the chance. Who expected genuine emotion from this ditty?
(Erin Weaver, that’s who.)
Weaver even added a moment of subtlety that was most welcome. When Pseudolus returns after an errand, she sees her master Senex: “Sir, you’re back!” she exclaims.
Meanwhile, he’s been so tightly hugged by Philia that he responds, “She almost broke it.” It’s a good gag, but the way Weaver responded with “You’ve returned” had a world-weary patina of “What, you really couldn’t understand what I meant?” Weaver reiterated what Shakespeare did with his Fools and Moliere with his servants: such people have street-smarts from their many experiences that their rarefied so-called betters have never been in a position to acquire.
Let’s have a paragraph-long shout-out for Harrison Smith’s Hysterium, the slave who usually bears the indignity of being called a eunuch (although here the word was softened to servant). That Smith perfectly panics at all the craziness occurring around him is only part of his achievement; those who missed that little slip of paper in their programs might have been stunned when they found it later that Smith was usually an understudy. Once again, we see what we had discovered especially since the pandemic: there’s so much great talent to go around that understudies could play the roles just as admirably if pressed into service.
Let’s segue to Zero Mostel, the original Pseudolus who became infamous for shamelessly improvising, adding and subtracting lines, breaking the fourth wall, and even telling the audience how the local sports teams were faring. Mostel set the tone for many productions of FORUM that have followed, and this one is no exception. Who’d expect a reference to CVS in 200 B.C., but there it was.
Would the hard-to-please Sondheim have approved of this production? Probably, for he would often advise budding writers that they shouldn’t be afraid of being vulgar. Gardiner agreed, often going lower than the low comedy that FORUM matter-of-factly dispenses.
When Weaver described the dire effects of a plague, she made clear that fluid emerges from two different orifices. There was a good deal of crotch-grabbing, nipple-pinching, not to mention how Miles Gloriosus (a most amusing Cameron Loyal) extended a pointed sword from his midsection to represents his manly virtue. What happened after Philia blew her nose was in concert with the rest, too. All these moves were there to please our lower impulses, and they just might have delighted Sondheim’s, too.
Whatever the case, the idea that Sondheim,Shevelove and Gelbart might have not appreciated Weaver as Pseudolus is unthinkable. Just a suggestion: Weaver would make an extraordinary Peter Pan. But let her do the newer one with a score by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, which is – here comes what many will brand as heresy – superior to the one we know.
And let’s have Weaver do it in New York. Has she ever appeared here professionally? Her bio indicates many stints in the aforementioned Jersey and Virginia, but she also claims ones in Pennsylvania and Washington, DC.
Come on, Erin! Share the wealth! Now that you’ve played Signature down south, play Signature here on 42nd Street.
And once New York discovers her, we’ll have to have a meeting of The Erin Weaver Fan Club in Yankee Stadium …
Peter Filichia can be heard most weeks of the year on www.broadwayradio.com. His calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – is now available on Amazon.