|
McLean Theatre Alliance Production of The Fantastics The Washington Post September 27, 2001 |
 |
|
McLean Theatre Alliance Production of The Fantastics The Washington Post September 27, 2001 |
|
| A
‘Fantastick’ Production of Dreamy Classic
By Michael Toscano
try to remember,
See, that’s what “The Fantasticks” can do to even a jaded reviewer. The signature song, “Try to Remember,” which invites us to relive tender memories from our own Septembers, echoes in the mind for days. The McLean Theatre Alliance has chosen the venerable “parable about love” as its fall production. And that’s just in time, because “The Fantasticks,” running continuously in the same theater just off Broadway since 1960, is scheduled to close in a few months. If you can’t see the original production before it’s gone, this one, directed by Diva Lynch, will do. How can that be? The answer lies in the utter simplicity of “The Fantasticks,” with words by Tom Jones and music by Harvey Schmidt. The set is spare and highly stylized, easy to reproduce. The musical accompaniment is lean, with the New York production using just a piano and a harp. Here, music director William D. Parker has chosen piano, bass and drums. Add eight talented actors and singers and an audience with imagination, and it’s theater reduced to its essentials. Lynch has remained faithful to the play’s origins, keeping it simple and sweet. This is the story of young Matt and Luisa, who fall in love even as their fathers feud. Unbeknown to the young lovers, the fathers are only pretending to be enemies, convinced that their children would rebel if they knew the fathers really wanted them to marry. The devious dads need a way out of the fake feud and hire a professional abductor, El Gallo, who will pretend to kidnap Luisa and allow Matt to best him a duel. The “rescue” will allow the fathers to bury the hatchet and all can live happily ever after. The ploy works, until the callow lovers doubt their relationship, which was, after all, based on illusion. They part and try to follow their dreanks, only to find disappointment until they return to each other. The plot is secondary to the dreamy, mythic mood created in “The Fantasticks," with its poetic dialogue and songs, including the haunting “Soon It’s Gonna Rain.” Adding to the surreal atmosphere is The Mute, who gracefully helps create illusions. El Gallo acts as a narrator and sings “Try to Remember” directly to the audience, unusual in an American musical, as he dares us to remember the feeling of young love. “The Fantasticks” must have seemed avant garde when it opened at the tail end of the Eisenhower era. Now it’s nostalgic without seeming dated. Lynch and producer Susan Kahn have assembled a talented troupe. Jennifer Ballif and Roy Leatherby are charming as the young lovers. Ballifs voice is a bit too operatic for some of the simpler melodies, but her power is used to good effect in “Round and Round.” Tall and dark, Jack Scheer is swashbuckling as El Gallo, fmessing moments comic and menacing with equal aplomb. As the fathers, Dan Hutchens and Tom Aberant work together as smoothly as a vaudeville song-and~dance team. Scott D. Landesman plays The Mute as a Marcel Marceau-style mime, but we’ll try not to hold that against him. Philip Baedecker and David Kahn almost steal the show in the non-singing, comic roles of ham actors Henry and Mortimer, whom El Gallo hires to help with the fake assault. Speaking of assaults, it long past the time to remove or alter the song, “It Depends On What You Pay,” sung by El Gallo and the fathers. The song and its accompanying dialogue about rape are supposed to be amusing but are quite jarring, especially in such a romantic play. No matter how well sung, “joking” lyrics about rape just aren’t funny, not for 1960 and certainly not now. “The Fantasticks"
is performed by the
|