All the superlatives about "The Fantasticks" have been written, and they're all true. In the 50 years since it opened off Broadway, there has not been a night when a production was not playing somewhere in the world. I can't count how many times I've seen it, but the first time included Jerry Orbach in the role of El Gallo. I was charmed then, and I was charmed by the Rep's production last night at the Loretto-Hilton Center, and I've been charmed–at least a little–by every production in between.
The Tom Jones (book and lyrics) and Harvey Schmidt (lyrics) masterpiece will run through April 11, closing the Rep's 2009-2010 season; it's a delightful, bright, beautiful evening of theater, directed wonderfully by Victoria Bussert, well-sung and acted by the entire cast, which generously yielded the best laughter to Joneal Joplin in his 90th Rep show, on a set imaginatively designed in a three-dimensional format by Gary M. English.
It marked the end of 38 seasons at the Rep for Joplin, and his first appearance, in a 1972 production of "Of Mice and Men," coincidentally was my first theater criticism for the Post-Dispatch.
The teenagers who fall in love (Stella Heath and Cory Michael Smith), involve a girl who pleads, "Please, God, don't let me be normal," and a boy who is a perfect adolescent doofus. Their fathers (his, Dan Sharkey; hers, Scott Schafer) argue over gardening techniques, hire a professional kidnapper and amateur philosopher, El Gallo (Brian Sutherland) to plan a crime and take a dive. He adds a pair of clowns posing as aged actors, Henry (Joplin) and Mortimer (John Woodson), who bring a glorious touch of slapstick and physical comedy.
The entire play is overseen by a mute sprite (Sara M. Bruner) who carries out the oxymoron of being a non-speaking narrator while running up and down English's ladders, hanging the moon (and the sun, too) and carrying on all sorts of necessary tasks with smiles, grins, downcast looks, a wrinkly nose and all the necessary expressions. She's terrific.
So is the rest of the cast. Heath shows off a fine soprano voice, and all the youthful insecurities. Smith is a bit less vocally impressive, but he demonstrates a perfect attitude and proof that the girl is right when she tells him girls mature earlier than boys. Sharkey and Schafer are physical contrasts who charm in a duet that may have been the first musical theater song to champion the virtues–at least some of them–of vegetables.
Joplin and Woodson, gussied up to the nines by the imaginative costume designer Dorothy Marshall English, provide more humor than is usual in the play. Interestingly, they seem to be the only actors who have a costume change (Heath doffs her boots in favor of ballet slippers, but that doesn't really count), and much of the time, it appears that they have merely added a few more layers of non-matching clothing, adding to the laughter they bring to the stage. Peter Sargent's lighting added to the magic of the production.
And then there's Sutherland, as the black-clad El Gallo. Sporting a dapper little mustache, he's a triumph for casting director Rich Cole and director Bussert. He's excellent, with a wry wit and wonderfully low-key performance, almost off-hand at times and yet always persuasive and with impressive timing. But his affect, to me, is that of the "aw, shucks" hero of all the B movies of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. It's absolutely perfect casting, and that type of work is one of the things that makes the Rep special as it winds down another season with a brilliant finale.
"The Fantasticks," a Repertory Theatre of St. Louis production at the Loretto-Hilton Center through April 11.
–Joe