Lawson Taitte

ADDISON – Stephen Sondheim wrote the essential stage direction for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum some years after the show first opened: "Send in the clowns."

WaterTower Theatre provides clowns in plenty in the production of the classic musical comedy, directed by Terry Martin, it opened on Friday. Also gorgeous courtesans with lissome physiques and a deluxe physical production anchored by one of Randel Wright's most delicious sets.

Forum, the first show that came to Broadway with music as well as lyrics by Mr. Sondheim, isn't nearly as musically inventive as its successors. Librettists Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart took elements of every old Greek and Roman comedy and reworked them into a farce with a Keystone Kops finale.

The slave Pseudolus (David Stroh) wants his freedom. To attain it, he must help his young master (Sean Patrick Henry) marry a virgin (Kimberly Whalen), although she has been already sold to a braggart soldier (G. Shane Peterman).

Mr. Stroh is an inventive comic actor, but he's not really a clown and not all that much of a singer. Mr. Peterman doesn't project his usual masculine glamour, either – perhaps because of one of the show's clunkier costumes. The sure-voiced Mr. Henry has to struggle against a costume that makes him look too girly, though he makes quite a couple with Ms. Whalen.

The four of them do well enough, but what succeeds best is the funny troupe around them. As Hysterium, Pseudolus' nervous fellow slave, Andy Baldwin is hysterical in every sense of the word. With Mr. Baldwin, over the top is just where you want him to go. Susan Mansur as the stentorian Domina steals every scene she's in, and Gordon Fox wrings laughs out of every bit of comic business as the old man in search of the children pirates stole from him.

The band led by Mark Mullino played precariously in the early scenes Friday but improved enough so as not to be distracting later on.

Finally, this Forum is greater than the sum of its parts: It's genuinely sexy in an inoffensive way, smartly turned out and consistently – especially when Mr. Baldwin is onstage.

PLAN YOUR LIFE Through Aug. 10 at WaterTower Theatre, Addison. Runs 150 mins. $20 to $30. 972-450-6232, www.watertowertheatre.org.