STAGE REVIEW : GroveShakespeare’s Stylish ‘Fantasticks’
At first blush, GroveShakespeare’s decision to stage “The Fantasticks” at the Gem Theatre this summer seemed little more than an easy way to put people in the seats.
You could hear murmurs that Stuart McDowell’s first programming decision as GroveShakespeare’s new artistic director was a sign of pandering to middle-brow taste while currying favor with a board of trustees eager for hits.
In fact, offering “The Fantasticks” does not take any special aesthetic courage, but staging it well does take a certain delicacy of touch. This is a show that depends on style.
The production at the Gem, it is good to report, is very stylish. As directed by Susan D. Atkinson, it gets the full treatment. She has cast the show with a sharp eye for the available talent, drawn colorful performances from ideally matched players and set them all with the kind of seamless, flowing charm that makes you forget how much of a mannered chestnut this 1960 musical is.
The plot of this Tom Jones-Harvey Schmidt collaboration involves a boy, Matt (Scott Tuomey), and a girl, Luisa (Amy Griffin), who live next door to each other, separated by a garden wall under the light of a cardboard moon. Their fathers--Hucklebee (Charles Carroll) and Bellomy (Dan Collins)--built the wall ostensibly to keep them apart but really to induce them to fall in love by making their union seem forbidden.
As a crowning fillip to guarantee the success of the romance, their fathers also hire a dashing bandit--El Gallo (Craig Oldfather). His job is to abduct Luisa for “a first-class rape” so that Matt can ride to her rescue, defeat El Gallo in a swashbuckling sword fight and thus become even more attractive in her eyes. (The Grove, using the innocuous original text, retains the references to rape and the song, “It Depends on What You Pay,” which describes El Gallo’s rates for various kinds of rape. Some productions omit the scene.)
Among the many endearing performances, Oldfather stands out as the production’s mock-heroic anchor with a sleek (though never slick) portrayal of El Gallo.
Griffin, who looks like Tracey Ullman but prettier, shuns any notion of a wan Luisa. She leaves the languid effects to Tuomey, who plays Matt with a nerdy sense of the absurd.
For broad comedy, however, the highlight of the show arrives with Henry (Roger Axworthy) and Mortimer (Trance Thompson), a pair of unemployed Shakespearean thesps who attach themselves to El Gallo as fellow rapists.
Axworthy delivers his non sequitur soliloquies with a glazed-over bewilderment that’s truly funny. Thompson also is a sheer delight; he “dies” with acrobatic verve.
Collins and Carroll lend delicious Fric-and-Frac support as the fathers. Pianist Kevin Weed brings real sophistication to the musical accompaniment. And the choreographed sequences, including a risky number with a ladder, betray no hesitations.
Not everything is perfect. The singers are sometimes tone deaf. Also, with the exception of the two most famous songs (“Try to Remember” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain”), the score isn’t particularly memorable. Moreover, the connection between the plot and the role of the ever-present Mute (Daryl Mendelson) is not made clear, despite a lengthy preamble in which he clears the stage of nicely designed attic clutter.
Flaws notwithstanding, this is one revival of “The Fantasticks” that deserves to be a smash hit.
“The Fantasticks,” Gem Theatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Ends Aug. 18. $18-$22. (714) 636-7213.
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