Lend Me a Tenor

You can’t have a farce without a few mistaken identities, and Lend Me a Tenor has them in spades. There’s also the jealous wife, the slamming of doors and ludicrous costumes. To go into the ins and outs would require far more space than we’re allotted here (this is farce, after all), but let’s just say in a suitably breathless way that there’s a nervous tenor who’s supposed to play Othello in a Cleveland Grand Opera Company production, but then someone gives him a tranquilizer and he falls asleep and everyone thinks he’s dead but the show must go on so someone else fills in for him and earns rave reviews, resulting in confusion. Phew… and any disclosure more risks being a spoiler.