OK, so you’ve let your spring-cleaning chores go longer than you’d have liked.

Put off that chore a few more days – there’s always the weekend — and take in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” at Pearl River High School this week.

The running schedule for this Roman comedy of errors is a bit unorthodox – the show runs tonight at 7 and tomorrow night at 8, before the school’s spring break — but it’s just the thing to inspire you to get out and tidy up, or to hire help.

There’s the bouncy opening number where the entire cast of 52 takes to the stage to sing “Comedy Tonight.”

And there’s the song “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid,” a bawdy powderpuff of a tune that stops the show two-thirds of the way through Act 1.

It starts with just the master Senex (Brian Leone) and wily slave Pseudolus (Matt Prigge) talking about the benefits of having hired help – in particular, pretty female hired help.

Soon, they’re off on a journey that leaves no entendre undoubled, with a nudge and a wink, and Stephen Sondheim’s clever lyrics:

“Everybody ought to have a maid,

Everybody ought to have a working girl,

Everybody ought to have a lurking girl

To putter around the house.

Senex and Pseudolus make a perfect vaudeville tandem, with simple choreography that puts the words and music front and center.

Prigge, who plays Pseudolus – “a role of enormous variety and nuance” – calls the song “eight minutes of innuendo.”

“Everybody ought to have a maid,

Everybody ought to have a menial

Consistently congenial

And quieter than a mouse.

Oh, oh, wouldn’t she be delicious,

Tidying up the dishes,

Neat as a pin.

Oh, oh, wouldn’t she be delightful,

Sweeping out,

Sleeping in.”

“It’s almost unrelated to the plot,” Prigge says. “They kind of step out and start making all of these innuendos. And it’s great here because the four of us are great friends, the chemistry is great, and we have a lot of fun.

“In fact, sometimes our director yells at us for taking it a little too far.”

True. Before a recent run-through, director Beth Carter counsels her cast to “bring it to the line without going over the line” adding, “right, gentlemen?” while looking at her “Maid” singers.

“Those innuendos are tempting,” Prigge says, “but we’ve got to be careful to hold it back for a high school audience.”

“Everybody ought to have a maid,

Someone who you hire when you’re short of help

To offer you the sort of help

You never get from a spouse.”

If they’re going far in rehearsal, and they clearly are, Prigge says the temptation will only increase when the auditorium is full of ticket-buyers.

“The whole point of comedy is thinking on your feet and responding to what the audience seems to want,” he says.

Senex and Pseudolus sing, strike a pose and the audience, presumably, applauds. (That’s how it has worked in rehearsal.)

But the song isn’t over.

After all, what innuendo ends without going a little further?

Soon, the duo is joined by Hysterium (Matthew Kenny), Senex’s chief slave, who is in a constant state of hysterical energy.

Played by Kenny, he’s got glimpses of Stan Laurel.

“He’s freaking out over everything,” he says.

But Kenny drops all of that to take part in this song, becoming just one of the guys.

“It’s essentially, the raunchy bar song as far as show tunes go,” he says. “We’re trying to do the choreography, but we always wind up elbowing each other and doing the jokes.”

The words objectify women – “terrible, horrible,” says Prigge, with a big smile on his face.

The song “never gets old,” says Leone, who plays Senex. “We’ve done it I don’t know how many times, and it just doesn’t get old.’

“Everybody ought to have a maid,

Daintily collecting bits of paper n’ strings,

Appealing in her apron strings

And graceful as a grouse.

Pattering through the attic,

Chattering in the cellar,

Clattering in the kitchen,

Flattering in the bedroom,

Puttering all around the house!

Freshman Brian Campbell is the last to join what becomes a “Maid” quartet.

He plays Marcus Lycus, the “flesh seller,” an unsavory character, to be sure.

“He’s a pimp, he owns a whorehouse, he treats women like dirt,” he says. “Ms. Carter calls him a dirtbag.”

And yet she cast Campbell.

“I had no idea I was so dirty,” he deadpans.

“Everybody ought to have a maid,

Someone who’ll be busy as a bumblebee

And even if you grumble, be

As graceful as a grouse.

Wriggling in the anteroom,

Jiggling in the dining room,

Giggling in the living room,

Wiggling in the other rooms,

Puttering all around the house!”

Don’t read too much into the song, Prigge says.

“As Pseudolus says, ‘Come, see a show, don’t look for a moral, don’t think too much. Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight.’ ”

Or comedy tonight, spring cleaning tomorrow.

Photo by Kathy Gardner/The Journal News: Matthew Kenny as Hysterium, left, Brian Leone as Senex, Matthew Prigge as Pseudolus and Brian Campbell as Marcus Lycus sing “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” in rehearsal for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” at Pearl River High School.

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”
Where: Pearl River High School, 275 E. Central Ave., Pearl River.
When: 7 p.m. tonight and tomorrow.
Tickets: $10; $9.
Call: 845-620-3800.
With: Matt Prigge, Brian Leone, Matt Kenny, Brian Campbell, Caiti Lord, Eric O’Keefe, Ciara O’Sullivan, Ed Kennedy, Dan Gorman, Deidre Kelly, Emily Yung, Shannon Hanson, Cristelle Sens-Castet, Jenn Nardella, Brianna Murtagh, Val Boos, JeanMarie Beckerle, Amanda Carrieri, Pamela Geraghty, Rebecca Hastings, Sarah Hastings, Megan McDonough, Alexandra Mormile, Maura Powers, Nicole Siley, Madeline Walsh, Ciara Whelan, George Delgrosso, Kevin Finer, Jade Kirchner, Sarah Koonin, Amelia Marino, Jack McKenna, Derek Nagle, Dan O’Connor, Lauren Bellante, Emma Charlton, Megan Darby, Ariana Limandri, Nicole Maher, Maggie Marsico, Kaitlyn McVeigh, Gina Pizzola, Jacqueline Renella, Helen Schneider, Sam Weidel, Brittany Weidel, Ben Sharrin, Ariel Zeig, John Berwick, Brian Liz, Lenny Marino, Tina Mahoney, Julia McIntyre, Nick Berwick, Soren Ackerman.