In 1962, as a young teenager, I visited my brother at Wilmington College in Ohio. While there, I learned that they needed a young guy in the next play and wound up staying the summer. While building the sets with the group, everyone was singing songs from a show that they all knew- “The Fantasticks.”
It was a great experience for me and when I returned home to New York that autumn, I knew I had to see the show and went into the City to see it- then in its second year. I came out singing the songs myself and even bought the LP record. Some sixty years later, I got the opportunity to see it again, not in New York, but at Quintessence Theatre in Mt. Airy. It was an outstanding production and I urge everyone to see it.
The story is a simple one. Two neighbors build a wall in their backyards to keep their curious children apart. They feel like the kids would say no to any and everything so they hope that by keeping the kids apart, the two would fall in love and eventually marry. To say that everything backfires would be a gross understatement. But by the end of the first act, the parents have enlisted the aid of El Gallo and some players to enact an fake abduction of the girl which will cause the boy to rally, defeat the abductors and rescue the girl. What makes this story so fascinating is all the substories and the extraordinary songs that express so many of the feelings.
The second act is even more powerful as the characters have trouble adjusting to the reality of life. Simple questions take on more profound meanings.
The songs alone are reason to go. “Try to Remember, Soon it’s Gonna Rain,” and “Plant a Radish” are some of my favorites and these performers have superb voices.
Director Meghan Belwoar has assembled an outstanding cast of eight. They can sing. They can act. But most of all, they just FIT. They define the term, “ensemble.” When singing together or revealing the developing plot, they ARE those characters. Even the presence of the mesmerizing mute played by Karen Getz, on stage for the entire play, was most engaging.
I rarely feel this strongly about a production, so fine in every aspect, that I can’t imagine that what I saw a half century ago in Greenwich Village was half as good as this.
I’m not going to reveal any more about the play. See it! It’s a winner.
“The Fantasticks” by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt at Quintessence Theatre, 7137 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19119, 215-987-4450, quintessencetheatre.org Thru December 31, 2023
Philadelphia Theater Reviews by Frank Burd 