Boys from Syracuse, The

There are quite a lot of people up on F.I.T.’s Haft Auditorium stage; some are British, most are American, and a couple of them even know what the hell they’re doing. The rest are at a loss, as is this under-rehearsed, unmanageable production of one of the first great musicals of the modern era. 

A forebear of Forum, The Boys from Syracuse has the same rapid-fire, joke-machine book (by George Abbott -- who was more spry on the Tonys than some of the dancers in this British American Light Opera Exchange mounting) and a score by Rodgers and Hart that could make a Corinthian column go all wobbly -- though, heavens! not as wobbly as the BALOE orchestra during the overture. It was like that most of the night, with shaky scenery, spastic spotlights, and amateur actors cavorting so laboriously, you could hear their bones creak (or was that the floorboards?). 

Saving graces? Alan Gronner (Dromio of Syracuse) has a fine comic face and the potential to be quite funny. Unlike nearly every other female on stage, Julie Smith (Galatea) is attractive and can actually dance. Judith Jarosz does all right by “Falling in Love with Love” (although she’s an earsore later on “Sing for Your Supper”), and much of the second act is pretty painless. Still, it only takes a minute of the endless first-act ballet to understand why ancient Greece fell.