The
Fantasticks
By
Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones
Directed by Joseph Discher
Critical
Reviews
Recalling a
gentler kind of September
12/10/01
By Peter Filichia
Star-Ledger Staff
Review
Since the off-Broadway producers of "The Fantasticks"
announced some months back that the musical would close in
New York after a 411/2-year run, tickets have been scarce.
But the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival in Madison is offering
a wonderful alternative: a production of the Tom Jones-Harvey
Schmidt classic that just so happens to be better than the
original.
That shouldn't be surprising. Some of the actors in Manhattan
have been around a while, so the show can be a little stale.
Not in Madison, where a talented octet is just starting its
four-week run and can't wait to get on stage and entertain
us.
Director Joe Discher sets his play backstage at a theater,
within a colorful chaos of boxes, barrels and beads. After
a somewhat hokey opening, where the actors pretend to be unexpectedly
caught playing cards, the main action begins.
"Try to remember the kind of September when life was
slow and oh-so-mellow," sings narrator Perry Laylon Ojeda
in his pleasant tenor. Those words resonate with sorrow after
this year's unkind kind of September. But soon "The Fantasticks"
returns to its lovely innocence and fanciful theatricality,
which allows an actor to put up a stick to represent a wall,
and we willingly suspend all disbelief.
The plot: Boy meets Girl; Boy wants to lose Girl once they're
married; Boy and Girl grow wiser and appreciate each other
after a few misadventures. Added to the mix are their fathers,
both of whom initially pretend to loathe each other and forbid
the kids from speaking. Using widely accepted parental logic,
they reason that the Boy and Girl can't resist the urge to
rebel and will fall in love.
The standout is Erica Piccininni as the Girl. She beams when
the Narrator ever-so-accurately points out her prettiness,
then goes on to depict the perfect woman-child. Piccininni
tightly clutches her arms around herself, suggesting an insecurity
that underlies her confidence in her specialness.
Fear not: She is special. The young auburn-haired actress
plays the role as if on a delightfully drunken spree, but
yields to vulnerability when events force her to sober up.
En route she wins the audience's affections, then offers a
beautiful rendition of her big song, "Much More."
Jared Zeus, more preppy-ish than most Boys seen onstage,
maintains the same look of innocence. Not that the Boy thinks
of himself that way. "I've dissected violets," Zeus
says, with a knowing look and a nod. "I know how things
are." He also knows how to give the right lyrical weight
to such charming songs as "Soon It's Gonna Rain"
and brio to "I Can See It."
As the Boy's Father, Darin De Paul marginally overdoes it,
and could benefit from the advice that the character gives
his son: "Write 'simplicity' 200 times without stopping.
That will improve your style." But Bruce Winant is delightfully
droll as the Girl's Father, full of Yankee, cracker-barrel
wisdom. The two score in their dual numbers, "Never Say
No" and "Plant a Radish."
And here's Paul Benedict, best known as Harry from TV's "The
Jeffersons," playing the Old Actor who helps the fathers
with their subterfuge. What a delight he is, always displaying
a river-wide smile to mask the character's ailments and deficiencies
-- though when he kneels as Romeo, he moans loudly as his
infirm knee hits the stage. That doesn't stop him from quoting
from "Macbeth," "Hamlet" and a few other
classics that slip "The Fantasticks" under the wire
as an apt choice for a Shakespeare festival.
Actually, "The Fantasticks" fills the stage of
the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival better than it does off-Broadway,
where it is cramped by the low ceiling of the Sullivan Street
Playhouse. If Discher had originally conceived the New York
production, who knows how long it could have run?
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