The Fantasticks

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The Fantasticks
Original Off-Broadway cast album cover
Music Harvey Schmidt
Lyrics Tom Jones
Book Tom Jones
Based upon Les Romanesques by Edmond Rostand
Productions 1960 Off-Broadway
2007 Off-Broadway revival

The Fantasticks is a 1960 musical with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. It tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the play "The Romancers" ("Les Romanesques") by Edmond Rostand [1], concerning two fathers who put up a wall between their houses to ensure that their children fall in love, because they know that children always do what their parents forbid. After the children do fall in love, they discover their fathers' plot and they each go off and experience things in the world. They return to each other and the love they had, having learned from the world and made an informed decision. Elements of the play are ultimately drawn from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, its story wending its way through Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream as well as Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore and Rostand's play.

The show's original production off-Broadway ran for 17,162 performances, becoming the world's longest-running musical, for 42 years. The poetic book and breezy, hummable score, including such familiar songs such as "Try to Remember," helped make this show so durable. Many productions followed, as well as television and film versions. The Fantasticks has also become a staple of regional, community, and high school productions virtually since its premiere, despite a deceptively simple plot line and several politically incorrect themes discussed below under "Controversy". It is one of the few musicals to have been made available to other theaters before its original production closed. The show is very budget-friendly because of its small cast, two-person orchestra and minimalist set design.

Contents

[edit] Productions

The play's first iteration was as "Joy Comes to Deadhorse" at the University of New Mexico in 1956. After substantial rewriting, it appeared on a bill of new one-act plays at Barnard College for one week in August 1959.

The Fantasticks premiered at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, a small off-Broadway theater, on May 3, 1960, with Jerry Orbach as El Gallo, Rita Gardner as Luisa, and Kenneth Nelson as Matt, among the cast members. The sparse set and semicircular stage created an intimate and immediate effect. The play is highly stylized and combines old-fashioned showmanship, classic musical theatre, commedia dell'arte and Noh theatrical traditions.

The original off-Broadway production was produced on a very low budget. The producers spent $900 on the set and $541 on costumes at a time when major Broadway shows would spend $1-2 million on sets, props, and costumes. The original set designer, costumer, prop master, and lighting designer was Ed Wittstein, who performed all four jobs for a total of only $480 plus $24.48 a week. The set was similar to that for "Our Town"; Wittstein designed a raised stationary platform anchored by six poles. It resembled a traveling players' wagon, like a pageant wagon. As for a curtain, he hung different small false curtains across the platform at various times during the play. He also made a sun/moon out of cardboard. One side was painted bright yellow (the sun) and the other was black with a crescent of white (the moon). The sun/moon was hung from a nail in one of the poles and is referred to in the libretto. The orchestra consists of a piano and sometimes a harp.

The original off-Broadway production closed on January 13, 2002 after a record-shattering 17,162 performances. It is the world's longest-running musical, and the longest-running, uninterrupted show of any kind in the United States [2]. Notable actors who appeared in the off-Broadway production throughout its long run included F. Murray Abraham, Keith Charles, Kristin Chenoweth, Bert Convy, Eileen Fulton, Lore Noto (the long-time producer), Dick Latessa, and Martin Vidnovic.

The Fantasticks has played in every state, in more than 11,103 U.S. productions in over 2,000 cities and towns. It has played at the White House, Ford's Theatre, the Shawnee Mission in Kansas, Yellowstone National Park and in America's more exotic locales from Carefree, Arizona to Mouth of Wilson, Virginia. Internationally, more than 700 productions have been staged in 67 nations from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. These include Canada (200+), Germany and Australia (approx. 50 each). Scandinavia has seen more than 45 productions including at least one each year since 1962, when it won an award there as the year's Outstanding New Theatrical Piece. Japan, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Czechoslovakia, have all seen multiple productions as have such newsworthy locales as Kabul, Afghanistan and Tehran, Iran. Recently, The Fantasticks has also been seen in Dublin, Milan, Budapest, Zimbabwe, Bangkok, and Beijing.

It has been translated into many languages including Pashto, Dari, French, German, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Czech, Slovak, Persian, Irish, Italian, Magyar, Thai, and Mandarin.

[edit] Television, film and recent revival

The show was broadcast by the Hallmark Hall of Fame on October 18, 1964. The cast included John Davidson, Stanley Holloway, Bert Lahr, Ricardo Montalban, and Susan Watson, who had appeared in the original Barnard College production.

A feature film directed by Michael Ritchie was completed in 1995 but not released until 2000. It starred Joel Grey, Barnard Hughes, Joe McIntyre, and Jean Louisa Kelly.

On August 23, 2006, a revival of The Fantasticks opened at the off-Broadway Snapple Theater Center on 50th Street in New York City.[3] The revival initially starred Santino Fontana as Matt. It was directed by lyricist Jones, who also appeared in the role of The Old Actor under the stage name Thomas Bruce. A cast recording of this production was released by Ghostlight Records. Anthony Fedorov, American Idol finalist from Season 4, assumed the role of Matt from May through July 2007. On January 17, 2008, it was announced that after 27 previews and 628 regular preformances, the revival would close on February 24 [1]. During its run its theatre was renamed the Jerry Orbach Theatre in honor of Orbach's appearance as El Gallo in the original production.

[edit] Plot

Act I

The musical seems to take place in small, unspecified American town (overture). The mysterious El Gallo then sings about love and September (Try to Remember). He then begins to explain the plot of the play. Matt and Luisa live next door, and fall in love. However, their fathers are feuding and order them not to speak. Luisa then stands and sings about the things she wants to do in her life (Much More). Matt then rises and delivers a speech about Luisa and how he is in love with her. He then discovers that Luisa is on the other side of the wall, he proceeds to sing about his love to her in a very exaggerated, superficial way (Metaphor). Matt and Luisa end the song on either side of the wall and speak of Luisa's vision of Matt saving her from kidnapping. Matt's father then appears, and speaks of his life and idea of life. He sees Matt and informs him of his new wife. He then orders Matt inside and follows. Luisa's Father then enters and speaks of his life and what his idea of life is. He then orders Luisa inside. He then calls to Hucklebee, and the audience find out that they are really friends, and pretended to feud so the children would fall in love. They then proceed to sing about how to control children, by saying no (Never Say No). Huck tells Bell of his plan to end the feud, by having Luisa "kidnapped" by a professional and then being saved by Matt. The hired professional, El Gallo(also the narrator, and "Puppet Master" of the show), then appears and sings about what kind of rape (really kidnapping) they want (It Depends on What You Pay), despite the cost, the Fathers agree to a first class rape. After the fathers leave the stage, Henry and Mortimer appear to help with the fake kidnapping. Henry and Mortimer are old actors who are much past their prime, and are frequently confused as to what is going on. Following that, Matt and Luisa walk on stage, and speak and sing of their love, and their dreamed life (Soon its Gonna Rain). After the conclusion of the song, the fake kidnapping occurs (Rape Ballet), Matt easily "defeats" Henry, Mortimer and El Gallo, and the feud is ended with the children and the fathers standing in a tableau (Happy Ending). El Gallo then rises, and comments on the Tableau, and how it will likely fail. He and the Mute exit as the first act ends.


Act II

The first scene opens with the children and fathers still in a tableau, but it looks as if it is hard to hold much longer. El Gallo then walks on stage and says that what was scenic in the night is cynic in the day. He then changes the moon to the sun, and leaves the fathers and children. The Fathers and Children then begin to complain about what has happened in the relationship, and sing of how the day makes things clearer (This Plum is too Ripe). The children try to "recreate the moonlight" by acting falsely romantic, which drives the fathers insane. Huck then purposely reveals that their kidnapping was a fake, and that the fathers were really friends. Matt and Luisa realize that they were meant to be married while the fathers fight. The fathers then leave, now with a real feud between them. El Gallo then enters, and Matt, in a desperate attempt to regain his honor and Luisa's love, challenges him to a duel. El Gallo disarms Matt easily and then leaves the stage. Matt and Luisa then argue fiercely, saying what they really think of each other. El Gallo then re-enters and tells the audience that Matt must leave to experience the world. Matt then sings with El Gallo about his vision of the world, while El Gallo sings of what it really is to the audience (I Can See It). Henry and Mortimer then appear and lead Matt off into the real world. A month then passes away, and the Fathers have rebuilt the wall. They proceed to resolve the conflict and speak of their children; Luisa is like a statue and does nothing but sit around; Matt still hasn't returned. They then sing about the risks of children (Plant a Radish). After they exit, Luisa sings a short reprise of "Much More" and discovers that El Gallo is watching. She then asks him to take her to the world, and run away with her. She believes that it is romantic, and he agrees to and they then sing of their future life, while Matt is being beaten by Henry and Mortimer in the Background, which is a metaphor for the world hurting him. This entire sequence has a severely dark underscore to it, and is called "Round and Round". After the conclusion of the song, El Gallo tells Luisa to go pack her things, but asks for her treasured necklace, a relic of her dead mother, as a promise that she will come. Matt begins to appear singing a reprise of "I Can See It" except while El Gallo tells Luisa of the worlds grandness, he sings about what the world is really like to the audience. After Luisa leaves to go pack her things, El Gallo begins to leave, Matt makes a pitiful attempt to stop him from leaving and hurting Luisa, but El Gallo easily overpowers him, and knocks him unconscious. Luisa then returns to the stage and realizes that El Gallo has left her, and sits down in tears. El Gallo then appears behind the central action, and recites a poem about how he had to hurt Matt and Luisa to make them realize what love is, and how he hurt himself in the process. Matt then rises and tries to comfort Luisa, and he tells her what the world is really like, and the two realize that everything they wanted was each other (They were You). Matt and Luisa then sing a reprise of Metaphor, with a deeper understanding of life. The Fathers then return and are about to tear down the wall, when El Gallo reminds them that the Wall must stay, and then he sings a reprise of "Try to Remember"

[edit] Characters

  • El Gallo (the Narrator/Bandit - baritone)
  • Matt (the Boy - tenor/baritone)
  • Luisa (the Girl - soprano)
  • Hucklebee (the Boy's father - baritone)
  • Bellomy (the Girl's father - tenor/baritone)
  • Henry (The Old Actor - non-singing)
  • Mortimer (the man who dies - an actor, pretending to be an American Indian - non-singing)
  • The Mute (who at times acts the part of the Wall - non-singing, non-speaking)

[edit] Musical numbers

Act I
  • Overture
  • Try To Remember - El Gallo, Luisa, Matt, Hucklebee, Bellomy
  • Much More - Luisa
  • Metaphor - Matt, Luisa
  • Never Say No - Hucklebee, Bellomy
  • It Depends On What You Pay - El Gallo, Hucklebee, Bellomy
    • alternately: Abductions - El Gallo, Hucklebee, Bellomy
  • Soon It's Gonna Rain - Matt, Luisa
  • Rape Ballet (changed to Abduction Ballet) - Company
  • Happy Ending - Company
Act II
  • This Plum Is Too Ripe - Matt, Luisa, Hucklebee, Bellomy
  • I Can See It - Matt, El Gallo
  • Plant A Radish - Hucklebee, Bellomy
  • Round And Round - El Gallo, Luisa, Company
  • They Were You - Matt, Luisa
  • Try to Remember - El Gallo

[edit] Controversy

Although the musical was a success, The Fantasticks' book became somewhat controversial due to its use of the word "rape." When El Gallo offers to stage the phony kidnapping of Luisa, he refers to the proposed event as a "rape" -- although he makes it clear that he uses the word only in its traditional literary sense (Latin "rapere") of "abduction", explaining that many classical works, including Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, use the word in this sense. In his song "It Depends on What You Pay" he describes different kidnapping scenarios -- some comic or outlandish -- that he classifies as the "Venetian rape", the "Gothic rape", the "Drunken rape", etc. However, as the public issues of rape and sexual assault became more of a delicate subject during the play's long run, some people in the audience became offended or puzzled by the use of the word.

To deal with changing audience perceptions, the book was edited to reduce the number of usages of the word "rape" and to replace them with other words, usually "abduction". In addition, the authors wrote an optional replacement piece called "Abductions", which uses the music of the overture of the show (although this song did not replace "It Depends on What You Pay" at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, where, with the edits made in the book, audiences did not seem to have much difficulty in accepting the song). It is generally agreed that this song is not as inspired as the original, but it does allow producers of the musical a way to avoid the controversy raised by the original song. In order to conserve the quality of the original song "It Depends on What You Pay", some directors choose to simply substitute the word "raid" for "rape", evoking the "Indian raid" which El Gallo stages.

Another potential source of controversy is the character Mortimer's comic portrayal of an old-fashioned Hollywood-style American Indian, which has some racist connotations.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Playbill News: Fantasticks to End Run at Snapple Theatre Center in February

[edit] External links