With superfab stagecraft, meta mini “Ben Hur” transcends the silly (and the silly ain’t bad)

Ben Hur: An Epic Comedy of Small Proportions, combines two standard comedy tropes (thus proving it don’t say comedy in the title for nothin’) by 1) telling an epic story with a tiny cast; and making it 2) an incompetently staged play-within-a-play.

Lesser craftsfolk have employed such devices as an excuse for stringing together a load of lame gags, which we’re presumed to excuse because “Hey, it’s not me who’s unfunny, it’s my characters — and that’s funny!” Painful shit. 

Patrick Barlow, however, sidesteps the doo-doo by knowing he has to be funny — and that his onstage alter ego should not just be a boob but a boob who’s got jokes. Barlow’s script is crafted with a lot more care than you expect to find at this level of silly. 

But for all that fine effort, it’s Long Beach Playhouse’s superfine cast and deep commitment to detail that allows Ben Hur to soar. 

Pre-show-within-a-show, Daniel Veil (Grant Thackray) — megalomanic founder of the Daniel Veil Theatre Collective (his name appears above the title multiple times on the marquee of his mind) introduces himself to us as the director / designer / choreographer / lead actor in his adaptation of General Lew Wallace’s epic 1880 novel Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ. And he promises to deliver the sea battle and chariot race made iconic in the 1959 film despite staging it all with only three other actors and two stagehands (all of whom we briefly meet — and whose bios are included in a drolly amateurish program within the actual Playhouse program). Now, on with the (show-within-a-)show!

It’s cute ‘n’ all when Edgar T. Chesterfield (Eric Schiffer) comes out for a prologue playing Gen. Wallace as if he’s Col. Sanders (iconic white suit/goatee), but at this point there’s no way to tell whether show-without-the-show Ben Hur will be joy or agony. But then we are transported back to the Holy Land, where three camel-riding wise men come bearing gifts wrapped like those under your Christmas tree, and by the time we reach Bethlehem it’s safe to sit back and enjoy the ride. Although Barlow’s banter is strewn with low-hanging fruit and bad puns (most of which had the audience howling, tbh), we’re laughing at/with Veil & co. in the right proportion — and a steady stream of both.

If Barlow’s script were a car, the cast/crew would be the aftermarket parts that, er, jack up the horsepower or whatever, and director Gregory Cohen is the mechanic who’s got the engine going vroom vrooming. For starters, with huge assists from set design, lighting, the whole damn mise en scène, Cohen’s got everything going like it should: the rhythm, the flow, the pace, the interpersonal dynamics, the actions and reactions, the hitting of hundreds of comedic beats, the blocking that’s more involved than most anything this side of a (good) musical. 

And he’s got the right cast for the job. Even in shows where everyone’s good, usually you have a standout or two, if for no other reason than they’ve got the right roles. But here every actor is perfect (so good, so sharp), every one an equal part (so much rapport) of why Ben Hur works so well. 

As well as Cohen & co. handle the broader elements, it’s the smaller stuff that really shows off just how deep their work goes. At the manger, where baby Jesus’s goatee is the spotlighted laugh, it’s easy to miss stagehand/extra Gwendolyn Glockenspiel’s (Jackie Shearn) turn as a sheep, there in the background while Mary and the magi talk, silently chewing her cud, ear twitching every now and then.

This level of detail is not the exception but the rule, and Cohen ceaselessly guides his cast (surely sometimes just by keeping great stuff they found on their own) into getting not just laughs in the nooks/crannies (some of which he’s carved out himself) but big ones. Shearn and Charlie Rodriguez with their seagull solidarity. Amara Phelps 360-degree swoop going up/down a nonexistent spiral staircase. Ninety seconds of dead air onstage while the cast argue in the lobby. A Sermon on the Mount that I’m not even gonna try to tell you about.

Ben Hur: An Epic Comedy of Small Proportions is a puerile entertainment — on paper, not the kind of thing I usually go for. But sometimes craft just wins the day. Long Beach Playhouse takes a script that is a cut above most of its kind and performs it with almost more care than it deserves. Fun. Funny. Handled with care. I’d tell you this is a can’t-miss even if you didn’t like silly more than I do. 

Ben Hur: An Epic Comedy of Small Proportions at Long Beach Playhouse

Times: Fri–Sat 8:00 p.m., Sun 2:00 p.m.
The show runs through March 23.
Cost: $20 to $30
Details: (562) 494-1014; LBplayhouse.org 
Venue: Long Beach Playhouse, 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach