Characters
- Pseudolus: A Roman slave, owned by Hero, who seeks to win his/her freedom by helping his/her young master win the heart of Philia. His name means "Faker". While originally written as a male role, it has been performed by female cast as well.
- Hero: Young son of Senex who falls in love with the virgin, Philia.
- Philia: (Greek for "love") A virgin in the house of Marcus Lycus, and Hero's love interest.
- Senex: (Latin for "old man") A henpecked, sardonic Roman senator living in a less fashionable suburb of Rome.
- Marcus Lycus: A purveyor of courtesans, who operates from the house to the left of Senex. (Name based on Lycus, the pimp in Plautus's Poenulus.)
- Domina: (Latin for "mistress") The wife of Senex. A manipulative, shrewish woman who is loathed by even her husband.
- Erronius: (Latin for "wandering") Senex's elderly neighbor in the house to the right. He has spent the past twenty years searching for his two children, kidnapped in infancy by pirates.
- Gymnasia: (Greek for "Athletic", with the connotation of nakedness) A courtesan from the house of Lycus with whom Pseudolus falls in love.
- Miles Gloriosus: (Latin for "boastful soldier," the archetype of the braggart soldier in Roman comedies) A captain in the Roman army to whom Marcus Lycus has promised Philia.
- Hysterium: (Latin for "Hysterical", or "Anxious", the suffix "-um" makes the name neuter, and the character's gender is often mistaken throughout the piece) The chief slave in the house of Senex.
- Tintinabula: (Latin for "Bells") A jingling, bell-wearing courtesan in the house of Lycus.
- Vibrata: (Latin for "Vibrant") A wild, vibrant courtesan in the house of Lycus.
- Geminae: (Latin for "Twins") Twin courtesans in the house of Lycus.
- Panacea: (Greek for "Cure All") A courtesan in the house of Lycus. A face that can say a thousand words and a body that can hold a thousand promises.
- Proteans: Choristers who play multiple roles (slaves, citizens, soldiers, and eunuchs). They accompany Pseudolus in "Comedy Tonight". On Broadway, three people played all of these roles.
Read more about this topic: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“It is open to question whether the highly individualized characters we find in Shakespeare are perhaps not detrimental to the dramatic effect. The human being disappears to the same degree as the individual emerges.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—
which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.”
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
“Thus we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)