Theater Reviews|A Return to Off Broadway, With Performance No. 17,163
Theater Review | 'The Fantasticks'
A Return to Off Broadway, With Performance No. 17,163
The Fantasticks
Off Broadway, Musical
Closing Date: Feb. 24, 2008
Theater Center, 1627 Broadway
An old actor climbs out of an old trunk, and suddenly it's springtime in the revival — no, I think I mean resuscitation — of "The Fantasticks."
The show that set a record for the world's longest-running musical, with 17,162 Off Broadway performances (all at the cramped Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village) before closing in 2002, opened last night (at the cramped Snapple Theater Center in Midtown). And for its first 15 minutes or so, this commedia dell'arte-style fable by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt feels like a prettily embalmed corpse, whimsy preserved with formaldehyde.
But that's before the advent of the old actor (or Old Actor, as the program identifies him, this being "The Fantasticks"). Dressed in disintegrating long johns, with a crown of string-mop hair, Thomas Bruce, the old actor who plays the Old Actor, will clearly never see 70 again himself.
And yet as his character preens over long past, probably shabby stage triumphs, his memory slipping gears, the Old Actor glows with the sort of gentle but insatiable passion for the theater that turns sawdust into gold dust. Unlike much of the rest of this production, he feels like the real thing.
Mr. Bruce's presence has an extra poignancy if you know that he played this part, when he was in his 30's, when "The Fantasticks" first opened at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in 1960. And, oh, one other thing: Mr. Bruce's real name is Tom Jones. That's right, the Tom Jones who wrote the book and lyrics for "The Fantasticks," and who has redirected the current production, in museum-replica style, according to the original staging by Word Baker, who died in 1995 but is still credited, in large type, in the Playbill for the show.
Thomas Bruce, who plays the Old Actor in the revival of "The Fantasticks," wrote the show's book and lyrics. His real name is Tom Jones.Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
The truly gripping love story of "The Fantasticks" is not that of the Boy and Girl at the plot's center but of the undying affection lavished on this bauble of a musical by Mr. Jones, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Baker and the producer Lore Noto, who through sheer devotion and tenacity turned it into the Little Show That Wouldn't Die.
The first critical responses were less than ecstatic for this theatrically self-conscious masquerade, performed in the homemade, confetti-strewn style of traveling players with a penchant for sweet melody and spun-sugar poetry. ("Perhaps 'The Fantasticks' is by nature the sort of thing that loses magic the longer it endures," wrote The New York Times's Brooks Atkinson, who thought the show stretched thin over two acts.) Audiences were initially sparse.
But through a combination of seat-of-the-pants commercial strategizing and word-of-mouth, further fueled by a rising cabaret star named Barbra Streisand, who used several of the show's songs in her act, "The Fantasticks" developed sturdy legs.
It became an oasis of warmth amid the cool of Beat-era Greenwich Village, the perfect evening's entertainment for people who sent Hallmark cards and wore black turtlenecks. By the mid-1960's the show was famous enough that a 9-year-old boy in North Carolina bought its original cast album with his paper-route money.
Yep, that was me. (You may gag before you continue reading.) I was enchanted by Mr. Schmidt's gossamer melodies and by lyrics like "What at night seems oh so scenic/May be cynic in the light," and "Try to remember when life was so tender/That love was an ember about to billow."
After I saw a touring production (there have surely been hundreds by now), I felt confirmed in my belief that "The Fantasticks" was the last word in theatrical sophistication. Of course that was around the time I thought Julie Andrews was the most totally brilliant movie star ever. I stopped playing the "Fantasticks" cast album when I reached puberty, but its lyrics are still stuck in my head, and I would happily undergo brainwashing to have them removed.
I tried to summon my stage-struck, preadolescent self as I watched the current "Fantasticks," but he must have been otherwise engaged. What at 9 seemed oh so scenic inevitably brought out the cynic in this professional critic. I was more given to flinching than misting up as the Boy (Santino Fontana) and the Girl (Sara Jean Ford) — next-door neighbors separated by a wall (Douglas Ullman Jr., as the all-purpose props man known as the Mute) — loved, lost and rediscovered each other.
Burke Moses, top, as El Gallo and Sara Jean Ford as Luisa in "The Fantasticks."Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
The unsmooth course of their love is, now as then, paved and potholed by their conspiring fathers (Leo Burmester and Martin Vidnovic), the Old Actor and his sidekick (Mr. Bruce and the slapstick-funny Robert R. Oliver) and the dashing El Gallo (Burke Moses in a role created by Jerry Orbach), the wise, worldly and sentimental narrator and plot arranger who sings the show's signature number, "Try to Remember."
It isn't easy to embody these characters without succumbing to archness, a tendency Mr. Moses and Ms. Ford do not avoid. Mr. Burmester and Mr. Vidnovic look a little sheepish as the horticulturally addicted fathers, as if they would rather be elsewhere. Mr. Fontana has a charmingly awkward spontaneity, though, and he and Ms. Ford sing their sweet songs sweetly, accompanied only by a piano (Dorothy Martin) and harp (Erin Hill).
And Mr. Bruce — or Mr. Jones if you prefer — gives a perfectly pitched, disarmingly sincere performance that captures why "The Fantasticks" became the enduring favorite it did. The one time tears stung my ties was when the Old Actor goes back into his trunk, intoning, with a hopeful gaze into the audience, "Remember me in the light."
So in that spirit, let me say that it is refreshing to find, on the edge of the Times Square theater district (at Broadway and 50th, to be exact), a musical that uses no artificial amplification and no special effects that exceed the complexity of a cardboard moon.
And who knows? There may be a few 9-year-olds out there — even among prematurely jaded souls who have sat through many multi-million-dollar Broadway spectacles — who will conclude that "The Fantasticks" is the last word in theatrical sophistication. At that age, they could do worse.
Book and lyrics by Tom Jones; music by Harvey Schmidt; directed by Mr. Jones; original production staged by Word Baker; sets and costumes by Ed Wittstein; lighting by Mary Jo Dondlinger; sound by Domonic Sack; musical director, Dorothy Martin; production stage manager, Gregory R. Covert; production management, Aduro Productions; production supervisor, Dan Shaheen; general management, Rod Kaats, Richard Frankel Productions; musical staging by Janet Watson. Presented by Steven Baruch, Marc Routh, Richard Frankel and Thomas Viertel; at the Snapple Theater Center, 210 West 50th Street, Manhattan; (212) 307-4100. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.
WITH: Thomas Bruce (Henry, the Old Actor), Leo Burmester (Hucklebee, the Boy's Father), Santino Fontana (Matt, the Boy), Sara Jean Ford (Luisa, the Girl), Burke Moses (El Gallo, the Narrator), Robert R. Oliver (Mortimer, the Man Who Dies), Douglas Ullman Jr. (the Mute) and Martin Vidnovic (Bellomy, the Girl's Father).