There are monster musicals, with giant orchestras and expensively-costumed casts, and then there is The Fantasticks. This is a sweet, unassuming, almost Our Town-type of musical, with a piano and harp as its “orchestra,” a cast of eight, an invisible wall, a ladder and a sun-and-moon on two sides of a piece of balsa wood.
Both types of musicals have their place in the universe, but no one can deny the haunting beauty of Harvey Schmidt’s music and the charming, quirky book and lyrics by Tom Jones. And Soulpepper, which continues to be the finest theatre company in Canada, has done a solid, occasionally inspired and always entertaining production of a tiny show which opened in 1960 (at the towering cost of $16,000, which today would not cover the weekly coffee breaks at most Broadway shows), and did not close for over four decades. When it did, it was quickly revived four years later, and it continues to sell out.
It is the very little show that could – and did. And while it can be awkwardly whimsical in places, at its best – as most of the present production of it is – it’s an unforgettable, very funny play, so sweet that you can almost get diabetes from watching it. (It is supposed to close on March 24, but with Soulpepper’s wise business decision to leave themselves open to extend popular productions, I here predict that it may well run for many weeks longer. It deserves to.)
Internet reviews, by their very nature, must be brief, so let me just say that Joseph Ziegler’s direction is as crisp and witty as any of the ones I’ve seen off-Broadway over the decades; Paul Sportelli’s musical direction is as fine as his always-superlative work at the Shaw Festival; Albert Schultz’s “narrator,” El Gallo, has a lovely voice and a good presence; and the two young lovers, played by the talented Jeff Lillico and Krystin Pellerin, are both very good, although their voices are occasionally a little soft. The less major characters, played by Michael Hanrahan and William Webster (both pictured, left and right respectively) Derek Boyes, Oliver Dennis and Michael Simpson, are often the best people on the stage.
Based on a minor play by the extraordinary French dramatist Rostand, who perfected the concept of romantic comedy with his wonderful Cyrano de Bergerac, The Fantasticks is truly one-of-a-kind. Soulpepper’s production has its flaws, but one longs to ignore them in the same way that people in love want to ignore the scratches or wrinkles on the face of their beloved. This is an irresistible and memorable evening (and you’ll have no trouble trying to remember it) suitable for children as young as 10. And let’s hear it for whoever at Soulpepper cleaned up one song which had a very ugly four-letter word in it – and no, not the f-word. I was sure they’d have the wisdom to do so and they did.
Bravo, Soulpepper!
Allan Gould is Post City’s theatre critic