'The Fantasticks': A Perennial Winner At SCC

Thwarted love always does seem sweeter when finally resolved than when the course runs smoothly---and that alone might account for the enduring popularity of “The Fantasticks.”

Hands down, it is the world’s longest-running musical, having opened off-Broadway in 1960, running until 2002, only to be revived in 2006. It is still running, now on Broadway in a theater named for Jerry Orbach, who performed in the original production.

Google “The Fantasticks” and you have 411,000 hits to explore; YouTube alone has 72,800 choices. Wikipedia estimates its breezy book, inventive score and simple staging—a chest full of stuff, a scaffolding, a few chairs—has led to more than 250 new productions annually, from high school to the Southampton Cultural Center’s Center Stage, where it opened last weekend.

Oddly enough, were it not for the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall in East Hampton, “The Fantasticks” might not have become an international sensation. It opened to so-so reviews and limped along in Greenwich Village for a couple of months until the then-artistic director of the John Drew Theater, Conrad Thibault, a man about the Manhattan theatrical scene, invited the original cast and crew out to East Hampton to work on it. The weather was terrible and the actors played cards on stage during rehearsals, but out here the magic coalesced. It was seen by the likes of Elia Kazan and Jerome Robbins, among others, who praised its newly found verve before it soon returned to the city.

All this is tidily told in Guild Hall’s 1993 book, “An Adventure in the Arts” by former executive director Enez Whipple. There is no mention of this out-of-town hiatus—which appears only to be a week or so; the book doesn’t give the exact dates—in the Wikipedia account of the show.

Producer Lore Noto wrote in 1981 that he “often wondered if we would have survived at all had we not availed ourselves of their [Guild Hall’s] unusual offer to continue our original run and bring the show to East Hampton ... By the time we returned to Sullivan Street [Playhouse] we were transformed from an endangered artistic success with an uncertain future to a commercial enterprise, which has since endured.”

Obviously, the world sees something that I don’t quite. I think it’s only fair to tell readers straight up that when I saw it off-Broadway in the early 1970s, I found it charming, fey and lightweight—and wondered what all the fuss was about.

That said, let me praise the worthy in Southampton, but first the sly and witty-enough plot: two neighbors determine that the best way for their children—a boy and a girl—to fall in love is to conspire to keep them apart. They build a wall and, when the wall is gone, passion turns to boredom. To bring back the magic, the fathers fabricate an abduction with wily bad actors. The lovers split up, travel the world, have adventures and, of course, return to each other’s arms.

But the story is not what has kept this warhorse going. “The Fantasticks” incorporates theatrical techniques from several places and periods of history, an ancient story, a narrator who is both in the drama and talks to the audience, and an impassive mute who adds visual drama and panache to the stage.

Here, she is a knockout—the lean and leggy Frances Sherman in white face, red lips and black fishnets is mesmerizing throughout the entire two-plus hours. Ms. Sherman has been in several productions staged by The Hampton Theatre Company in Quogue, as well as film and television credits she is too mute/humble to list in the program.

The “bad actors,” who carry out the nefarious kidnapping, are anything but terrible at their craft. Philip Reichert as a fat and raucous Henry jumbles up a dozen Shakespearean characters to riotous effect. His sidekick, Stephan Scheck as Mortimer, is possibly a Native American. Possibly not. Both are over-the-top hammy and equally delightful.

Mr. Reichert has been Henry before, in a production by the North Fork Community Theater in Mattituck, and it is there he met his wife, Miriam Shilling, who is the harpist for this production. All the world’s a stage, eh?

Michael Disher’s staging is superb, and yes, that is him as one of the silent “roustabouts,” otherwise known as stagehands, even if he is not listed on the program. When actors fall out at the last minute, a director’s got to do what a director’s got to do: jump in and take over. The spare set, as in the off-Broadway original, of painted backdrops and costumes is first-rate, as well as the manipulation of the simple props by those aforementioned roustabouts.

Ella Watts as the girl, Luisa, brings a sweet brightness the role of the ingénue. Richard Adler as one of the fathers, Hucklebee, ably commands the stage in song and dance. Overall, the acting is proficient but, save for these two, the singing is often wanting. Yet, “Try to Remember” is such a familiar and haunting tune it is always pleasurable to hear it again—even to someone as jaded as moi.

“The Fantasticks”

Book and lyrics: Tom Jones; Music: Harvey Schmidt; Music: Karen Hochstedler on piano, Miriam Shilling on harp.

Remaining cast includes Daniel Becker as the narrator, El Gallo; Adam Fronc as the boy, Matt; and David Hoffman as the girl’s father, Bellomy.

The production will stage through Sunday, October 18, on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 and $12 for students under age 21 with ID. Dinner-and-theater packages are also available. For more information, call (631) 287-4377, or visit scc-arts.org.