Comedy Tonight

[PROLOGUS, spoken]
Playgoers, I bid you welcome. The theatre is a temple, and we are here to worship the gods of comedy and tragedy. Tonight, I am pleased to announce a comedy. We shall employ every device we know in our desire to divert you.

(sung)
Something familiar
Something peculiar
Something for everyone—a comedy tonight!
Something appealing
Something appalling
Something for everyone—a comedy tonight!

Nothing with kings
Nothing with crowns;
Bring on the lovers, liars and clowns

Old situations
New complications
Nothing portentous or polite
Tragedy tomorrow
Comedy tonight!

Something convulsive
Something repulsive
Something for everyone

[PROLOGUS & PROTEANS]
A comedy tonight!

[PROLOGUS]
Something esthetic

[PROTEANS]
Something frenetic

[PROLOGUS]
Something for everyone

[PROLOGUS & PROTEANS]
A comedy tonight!

[PROTEANS]
Nothing with gods
Nothing with fate;

[PROLOGUS]
Weighty affairs will just have to wait

[PROTEANS]
Nothing that's formal

[PROLOGUS]
Nothing that's normal

[PROTEANS]
No recitations to recite!
Open up the curtain—
Comedy tonight!

[PROLOGUS]
Something erratic
Something dramatic
Something for everyone—a comedy tonight!

Frenzy and frolic
Strictly symbolic
Something for everyone—a comedy tonight!

(spoken)
And now, the entire company!

[COMPANY]
Something familiar
Something peculiar
Something for everybody—comedy tonight!

Something that's gaudy
Something that's bawdy
Something for everybody—comedy tonight!

[SENEX]
Nothing that's grim

[DOMINA]
Nothing that's Greek

[PROLOGOUS]
She plays Medea later this week

[COMPANY]
Stunning surprises!
Cunning disguises!
Hundreds of actors out of sight!!

Pantaloons and tunics
Courtesans and eunuchs
Funerals and chases
Baritones and basses
Panderers
Philanderers
Cupidity
Timidity
Mistakes
Fakes
Rhymes
Mimes
Tumblers
Grumblers
Bumblers
Fumblers

No royal curse
No Trojan horse
And a happy ending, of course!

Goodness and badness
Man in his madness
This time it all turns out all right—
Tragedy tomorrow
Comedy tonight!

(spoken)
One, two, three!