Pseudolus

Pseudolus (whose name is the ancient Greek for "phony" or "faker") is the central character of the 1962 Broadway play A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum by Stephen Sondheim, Burt Shevelove, and Larry Gelbart. He is based on the same-named title character of a play by the Roman writer Plautus, c. 191 BC. In Sondheim's play, Pseudolus is the slave of the wealthy Senex family in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero. With the promise of eventual manumission, Pseudolus helps the naive young heir of Senex to court a fair maiden. Comical stumbling blocks ensue upon the arrival of military commander Miles Gloriosus. Zero Mostel's portrayal of Pseudolus in the original stage production and the 1966 film remains arguably the definitive version of the character.

Pseudolus in "The Great White Way"
Pseudolus played an unconventional role in the Sondheim-Webber battle. Sondhead supreme commander Trina Hutchinson lured the Webberite sniper Norma Desmond into Marcus Lycus' dining room, where Pseudolus prepared Desmond a fancy drink. Rather than poison, as Webberite commander Brent Birley expected, the glass contained a powerful love potion. Desmond and Pseudolus retired from the fighting, traveling off to find a suitable place to consummate their newfound obsession. The computer simulation was not equipped to depict this, so the two lovebirds simply disappeared from the action and were not seen again.