BWW Reviews: THE FANTASTICKS Gets A Fresh Look at Allenberry Playhouse

Is THE FANTASTICKS dated? Well, it's based on Edmond Rostand's LES ROMANESQUES, from back in 1894, so when it first came to the stage in 1960, it had nearly seventy years on much of the plot. But it's dated in eternal wisdom, part of that being from the more recent Ann Landers and Dear Abby, who taught us incessantly that if you attack your child's unsuitable beloved, they'll refuse to listen to you and only get closer to the wrong person. What if two parents who wanted their children to get together decided to manipulate them so that, by claiming the neighbors next door were horrible and building a wall so they couldn't see each other, the children would be bound to rebel and get together?

You know, it's a thought.

And the discovery that your parents were trying to force the two of you to get together is certainly enough to drive any two young lovers apart. That's a thought, too.

And the greatest piece of eternal wisdom in the show? The one from way before Dear Abby? You don't know what it means to be happy until you've been hurt.

Throw it all in a blender and you've got THE FANTASTICKS by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, notable as the longest-running play on earth, notable for Jerry Orbach's birthing the bandit El Gallo and the song "Try to Remember," notable for songs like "Try to Remember" that you know even if you don't know the show - "Soon It's Gonna Rain" and "They Were You" two others of the songs everyone knows. This reviewer spent her childhood reading NEW YORKER capsule reviews of New York theatre and watching the production count for THE FANTASTICKS rise weekly thanks to its blend of surrealist humor, amazing songs, and fine actors in the cast.

At Allenberry Playhouse, director Ryan Gibbs gives the production a combination of the most recent version of the script (an offhand reference to Benghazi makes it sound even more recent than it is); a charmingly surrealist set courtesy of the Broadway Green Initiative, which has the show using various recycled goodies to make the houses, the Wall, and the flower and vegetable beds that the fathers love to tend; and a particularly fine cast. The cast includes Allenberry veteran Richert Easley, remembered by veteran Allenberry patrons and back thanks to Allenberry's recent and fortuitous re-connection with Actors' Equity, and Equity member Andy Lebon, who is as fine an El Gallo as there's been, outside of Jerry Orbach's inimitable original bandit. Lebon was delightful in Allenberry's SOUTH PACIFIC, but this production makes his talents far more visible.

Craig E. Treubert, notable for his insanely amusing Mr. Applegate in Allenberry's DAMN YANKEES, is back as Hucklebee, one of the demented dads of the show. He's playing against Jeff March, recently in MAME, who's bumbling Bellamy, the other dad. These friends-pretending-to-be-enemies are a fine comic duo, especially in the vaudeville turn "Plant A Radish," dedicated to the thought that you know what seedlings will grow up to be, but there's no way to predict what your children will do - and that you're probably best off with your garden. This English music hall turn is one of the most utterly appealing moments of the show, as Treubert and March let their comic chops, as well as their musical chops, fly.

Matt and Luisa, the young lovers and the subjects of the show's continual experiments - it's never mentioned, but the two are as symbolic a pair of subjects of psychological testing as anyone, ever - are played capably and charmingly by TJ Lamando and Julia Paladino. Both recent college graduates, the two are indeed still able to play "green" even though they have enough stage credits to be veterans, and it's that sense of being greenhorns to the ways of the world around them, naïve to scheming fathers, brigands, panhandlers, and cutthroats, that allows them to have the requisite pain by the end of the show for the finale to work. The slightest feeling that either one understood the world before late in the second act would destroy the show. These two are able to keep the bubble intact.

Beautifully as the show is staged - the Broadway Green Initiative set is astonishing and amusing, a character of its own (check for the show's requisite moon and sun, and how they've been set up), and capably as it's acted, especially by Lebon, March, and Treubert, there are still a few things one wants to see. The tribulations of Matt as he makes his way through the world unsuccessfully could use a few influences from the Diane Paulus PIPPIN, now the definitive staging of a coming of age piece. Matt, at least, needs to seem a bit less sexually naïve at the end than when he started out. Easley and Charles Baran, as veteran theatrical troupers Henry and Mortimer, are a wonderful team, so much so that one wants to demand more of them, though the book limits their presence. Are they better as phony bandits in the first act or as the kings of live Punchinello performance in the second? In both, one longs for expanded roles. And perhaps, just perhaps, one doesn't want to adore El Gallo quite so thoroughly, to sympathize with his role quite so cleanly. Oh, all right, maybe we do. Lebon simply owns this part.

Does the show now make the connection with its audience that it did fifty years ago? Has age dimmed its vitality, or cynicism made it too precious? If anything, it's more likely the latter; a strong production such as this one certainly has sufficient energy, but these days virtually everyone, including the kids, knows the wisdom of Ann Landers on getting kids together, so it's lost some of its surprise. But it still has magic, especially in its music, and still has more of the charm of a period piece than feeling as if it needs CPR.

At Allenberry Playhouse through October 4. It's played locally recently, but not like this; this production will give fans of the faithful old warhorse a reason to fall in love with it again. For tickets and information, and for the same for what's rumored to be an amazing production of SLEUTH as the next show up, call 717-258-3211 or visit allenberry.com.

Photo credit: Cindy King

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