ESCONDIDO, California —The musical The Fantasticks with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones was originally an off-Broadway production that ran a total of 42 years and 17,162 performances making it the world’s longest running musical. It’s characters are Matt (a Boy), Louisa (a Girl), Huckaby (the Boy’s father), Bellomy (the Girl’s father), Henry, (an old actor), Mortimer (his sidekick), The Mute (a mute) and The Narrator, El Gallo.
The fact that it has a small cast with a minimalist set (Mike Buckley) and a tearjerker of an opening number, “Try To Remember”, sung beautifully by El Gallo, Randall Dodge, it’s no wonder it is one of the most produced musicals around the country. It is now in a rather flawless production at the Welk Resort’s Theatre under the direction of Ray Limon with musical director Justin Gray on keyboards and Celia Chan Valerio playing the harp.
The story line is pretty simple. Good friends and neighbors, Huckaby and Bellomy build a wall separating their properties and pretend to be mortal enemies in the guise of tempting their children to defy their wishes to stay away from each other.
Well, boys being boys and girls being girls, they meet secretly and fall in love and plan to run off and get married in spite of what they think their Dads want. Now that the Dads; dreams come true and their children are in love with each other, how do they undo their little lie?
They devise a plan to hire some traveling actors to ‘rape’ (later changed to the politically correct ‘abduct’) our Louisa so that Matt can save her, bring her back the hero and the fathers will then bless their union. Naturally, it backfires on them and when Louisa and Matt find out the truth only to turn away from each other and go off in different directions to rediscover themselves.
Every time I see The Fantasticks I wonder how and why it became and still is so popular and why I’m not as enamored with it, as are my many theatre pals. The one and only song “Try To Remember” is truly beautiful and does hit some distant memories of past longings, but the rest of the music is willy nilly silly, like “Plant a Radish” sung by the two fathers whose gardening skills are as different as night is from day and the story, slight as it is, is only as charming, delightful and creative as is Act I. By Act II darkness settles in and the ‘rape’ or abduction scenes become heavy handed and at odds with the overall feel of the first act.
Not to take anything away from the overall production, the show at the Welk is in good hands with its talented ensemble. You can never go wrong with the likes of Randall Dodge, who is a natural as El Gallo. He is in about every scene guiding us through the entire show with just a hint of naughtiness glowing in his cynical smile.
Both Michaelia Leigh and Benjamin Zep Misek are perfectly a matched Louisa and Matt. Michaelia’s voice simply beautiful. Both are convincing in the acting department as well. Brett Daniels and Dirk Rogers play well off each other as the pair’s fathers and Walter Smith and Shaun Leslie Thomas as the aging actor and his Indian sidekick are fun to watch for a while but their shtick gets tired fast. Michael Lopez is cute as a button as the Mute.
Carlotta Malone coordinated the everyday looking costumes and Jennifer Edwards’ lighting design is perfect. Mike Buckley’s props suggest a set design as per directions allowing for the imagination to fill in the blanks with a white curtain hanging from a rod with the words “The Fantasticks” printed across, a large Sun suspended in air, a ladder, an old trunk, and a few backyard gardening utensils with some left over household junk.
This is the creative world of theatre as seen in this Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt show where the mind and illusion do all the work for us.
BTW, Randall Dodge is Fantastic!
See you at the theatre.
Dates: through April 3rd
Organization: Welk Resort Theatre
Phone: 760-749-3448
Production Type: Musical
Where: 8890 Lawrence Welk Drive; Escondido
Ticket Prices: $37.00-$47.00; show only; $49.00-$63.00 show and buffet lunch or dinner
Web: welktheatressandiego.com
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Davis is a San Diego based theatre critic. She may be reached at carol.davis@sdjewishworld.com