By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
A play so constructed of theatrical artifice should not be this moving.
Yet when the wise rogue Gallo reprises the ballad “Try to Remember” at the end of “The Fantasticks,” it tugs at the heart.
In the preceding two hours, the bandit-for-hire Gallo (Ryan Zarecki) has taken the audience into his confidence.
Griffen Palmer and Madison Zavitz portray the young lovers in “The Fantasticks” with Elizabeth Cottle as the mute (center) representing the wall between them.
“The Fantasticks” is being staged by the Valentine Theatre in Studio A, on the Adams side of the complex, directed by James M. Norman, for six shows starting Friday, May 12, at 8 p.m. continuing Saturday, May 13, Friday, May 19, and Saturday, May 20, all at 8 p.m. with Sunday matinees, May 14 and 21, at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20. Visit: http://www.valentinetheatre.com/events.html.
“The Fantasticks” has a classic fairy tale set up with a girl, Luisa (Madison Zavitz), and a boy, Matt (Griffen Palmer), and they are in love in the most besotted way, made all the more acute by the fact that their fathers have built a wall to keep them apart.
The fathers, Hucklebee and Bellomy, are feuding, or that’s what they like their children to suppose. It’s all a ruse to keep the lovebirds focused on each other and to bring about their marriage.
They are also gardeners, which gives them more satisfaction than raising children, because as they sing “if you plant a turnip, you get a turnip.” Who knows what children will turn into?
All this plays out as planned, more or less, in the first act with the assistance of Gallo and two, down-at-the-heels actors, Henry (Ed Burnham) and Mortimer (Jeremy Allen).
But it is a very short lived happily-ever-after.
A mute, played by Elizabeth Cottle, observes it all with bemusement and dispenses needed stage properties and costumes, and even those actors who emerge from her box. She’s a reminder that this is a mere fantasy with a lesson should anyone care to heed it.
For Bowling Green theatergoers there’s some familiar faces.
Palmer is a BGSU student who most recently appeared in “Twelfth Night” and “The Drowsy Chaperone.”
Zavitz is a marvelous comic actor who played the female lead in “The Drowsy Chaperone” and graced a number of other productions on campus. This part of the head in the clouds teenager suits her well. She makes us care about a ridiculous character and shows how those romantic notions fare when exposed to the light of reality.
This is a good chance to see her once more on stage before she continues her studies at Hogwarts. Well, sort of, she’ll work this summer as a member of the Hogwarts choir at Universal Studios’ The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Ryan Zarecki as Gallo sings “Try to Remember” to open “The Fantasticks.
A decade ago a theatergoer in Bowling Green could not miss Zarecki. He bounded across stages at BGSU, at City Park as one of the Beautiful Kids and school auditoriums in the Treehouse Troupe.
I most remember most his athletic performances as Puck in “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Peter Pan with Treehouse Troupe. Though maybe his most memorable stage appearance for me was presenting flowers to Eva Marie Saint, and endearingly delivering words of thanks and welcome on behalf of theater students.
His Gallo has the right mix of being charming – no doubt why Luisa is attracted to him – and conniving. He may be world weary, but there’s a spark of idealism still within.
In an interesting art-reflecting-life moment, Gallo gives an enraged Matt, a lesson in fencing, correcting his technique as the boy tries to kill him. Zarecki is in real life a fight director, and the ease with which he brings this to his character is a delight.
(Local theater types will also be glad to know there’s a familiar face back stage as well. Karen Landrus, retired high school drama teacher and veteran theater hand, is back in the saddle as assistant stage director after several years being sidelined because of health issues.)
The cast has a wonderful sense of ensemble. Bays and Smith make for a wonderfully comic duo as the fathers, first pretending to bicker while secretly scheming, and then really bickering when they seem to achieve their goal.
Burnham is perfect as the long, long past his prime actor with his mind clotted with disembodied lines from Shakespeare, yet with his sense of theatrical flair intact.
As Mortimer, an actor whose specialty is dying, Allen plays the fool, but who is clearly taking care of his old partner.
But Henry embodies the redoubtable spirit of the thespian that’s so much part of the play itself. “I recite Shakespeare and Mortimer dies, but there’s always an audience somewhere.”
The foibles and quirks, dreams and delusions of the characters slide into song. The score is melodious with two songs that were break out hits “Try to Remember” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain.” In the world of “The Fantasticks” these melodies are natural extensions of the characters. The instrumentation is simple with music director Josh Wang, another BGSU connection, on keyboard and Nancy Lendrim playing the harp, which adds yet another layer of fantasy.
The show does contain the problematic show stopper “It Depends on What You Pay.” No matter how they try to massage it leading into the number and insist the word “rape” is used an arcane, euphemistic way, I must say it still grates a bit.
I’m sure in 1960 when “The Fantasticks” made its debut, it may have been easier to swallow, but it’s one of those entertainment elements that dates the production.
That aside, “The Fantasticks” seems very fresh, ready for another director’s vision, and for a new cast to bring their personalities into the half-century old mix.
This production delivers a lively, comic rendition with plenty of heart.
