Posted on 01/08/2002 6:25:47 PM PST by GeneD
Before there was a Unisphere in Flushing Meadow Park or a bridge dedicated to an explorer named Verrazano, before the Beatles cut their first single or the Soviets spirited missiles into Cuba, a small band of actors filed nightly into a tiny theater in Greenwich Village to perform a romantic little musical about a boy, a girl and the travails of young love.
The week it opened, in May 1960, its producer was advised to close the show: the reviews were only so-so, and ticket sales were disappointing. But he decided to try to hang on for a spell, to the relief of the cast of unknowns. One of them, an actor named Jerry Orbach with a creamy baritone, imagined that if it had time to develop a following, the show might flourish. "I thought," Mr. Orbach recalled, "it could run for like five years."
He was off by only 37.
"The Fantasticks" would go on to defy every convention of the here-today-gone-tomorrow ethos of the theater, staying longer in New York than many New Yorkers. It would not only outrun virtually every entertainment venture of its time but also outlast nine presidents, six mayors, four decades and enough city blackouts, bailouts and blizzards to fill a stack of almanacs. On the "Fantasticks" timeline, "Cats," which ran for 18 years, was a flash in the pan. Only "The Mousetrap" in London, soon to celebrate its 50th anniversary, has endured longer.
And now, on Sunday evening, after 17,162 performances an American record that, like Joe DiMaggio's consecutive-game hitting streak, may never be equaled "The Fantasticks" will do the one thing that few thought it capable of. It will close. For one last time, the two-piece band of piano and harp will strike up the score, the actor playing the dashing El Gallo will sing the signature opening song, "Try to Remember"; the eight-member cast will enact the simple, two-act fable on the white- tiled floor of the Sullivan Street Playhouse; and then the ancient-looking stage lights will be switched off on an essential piece of theater history.
"Haven't we earned the right to retire gracefully?" asked Tony Noto, the show's associate producer and son of its chief producer, Lore Noto. If he sounded slightly exasperated, it may have been because in the months since word of the closing began to spread, die-hard fans have been telling the Notos that justice would be served only if "The Fantasticks" were allowed to run perpetually, a kind of theatrical Niagara Falls.
But the Notos are Fantastick-ed out. And so perhaps are most theatergoers. It is no secret that this war horse has been limping along for years, surviving chiefly on out-of- towners lured by, among other things, the sheer length of its celebrated run. Even then, it has been difficult to fill the 150-seat theater. There was the memorable low point of a matinee a few years back, the younger Mr. Noto recalled, when the actors did the entire show for a paying audience of one.
So when a new landlord recently bought the building that houses the theater and talked of large-scale renovation of the property the show has a lease that allows it to stay for as long as it continues to run the Notos decided to settle with the owner and move on. (They say they are bound by the deal not to discuss its terms.)
Still, the intriguing question about "The Fantasticks" has less to do with why it is leaving than with why it, among the thousands of shows that have risen and fallen over the years, should be the Methuselah of musicals, having been presented in more than 15,000 productions around the country and the world.
During its 42-year run it has been made into a television special and a feature film, employed actors who went on to win Tonys, Emmys and Oscars, and had its melodies recorded by the likes of Harry Belafonte and Barbra Streisand. Once, years ago, when Ed Ames sang "Try to Remember" on the "Tonight" show, the response was so overwhelming that Johnny Carson asked him back to sing it again.
And of course this Off Broadway show has provided an income to countless theatrical journeymen, William Tost among them. He is a record holder himself, having played Bellomy, the Girl's father, since Nov. 6, 1982. "I can't think of any other show that I could be in this long," he said, standing in a spartan communal dressing room at the Sullivan Street Playhouse. "I don't think I could have been in `Death of a Salesman' for 19 years and remained sane."
Like those centenarians who attribute their survival to a regimen of wine and goose fat, "The Fantasticks" is a specimen whose longevity is a mystery to the experts. Even its creators, the composer Harvey Schmidt and the lyricist and book writer Tom Jones, cannot really put their fingers on it. Some unique mixture of ingredients is the best anyone can come up with: a timeless story, a simple setting, an eternally magical score, a producer with a stubborn streak, who nearly closed the show in 1986, then relented.
"It's meant to be a celebration and a sendup of young love," Mr. Jones said during a joint interview with Mr. Schmidt. "It's supposed to touch you and also make you think how stupid it all is."
Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Jones, who went on to write musicals like "I Do! I Do!" and "110 in the Shade," toiled on "The Fantasticks" for years in the late 1950's. Its eccentricities began with its working title, "Joy Comes to Deadhorse." Inspired by a largely forgotten work, "Les Romanesques" by Edmond Rostand, the author of "Cyrano de Bergerac," the young songwriters drew on a variety of theatrical styles and themes, from commedia dell'arte to "A Midsummer Night's Dream," to devise the parablelike story of Matt and Luisa, an everyboy and -girl, who learn about delight only by discovering pain.
"It's such a beautiful love story," said Rita Gardner, the original Luisa, the dreamy ingénue who sings of wanting to "go to town in a golden gown/And have my fortune told."
"The show had all those gorgeous songs, and it was done in a simple way without sets," she said. "And there was empathy for everyone involved. Word Baker, the director, would let us do the show and he would say, `I'll take that, that and that.' He was the editor, and he allowed us to be free."
Baker died in 1995 but is still listed as the director. The original Matt, Kenneth Nelson, also died a few years ago; Mr. Orbach, now a star of "Law and Order," played the suave narrator El Gallo, the part that made his name. Mr. Jones, under the pseudonym Thomas Bruce, originated the part of Henry, the Old Actor.
He and Mr. Schmidt eventually settled on "The Fantasticks," which was also the name of the English version of the Rostand play, as their title. "I really loved the K;, it really gave it such zing," declared Mr. Schmidt, who trained as a graphic artist and designed the type for the show's logo. (In the 1960's "The Fantasticks" protested when a cleaning product with a name spelled similarly came on the market. The songwriters said that in a compromise the manufacturer agreed to drop the C in its name.)
"The Fantasticks" was never a success of the magnitude of, say, "The Producers." "It's never officially been a hit," Mr. Schmidt said. The piece bruises easily; in lazy productions, the artsy conceits the stylized language, the character of the Mute fall prey to preciousness.
It has also been altered over the years to conform to contemporary sensibilities. El Gallo's first-act showstopper "It Depends on What You Pay," in which he lists the ways he might beguile and steal off with Luisa, is better known as the rape song. Rape is used in the number to mean seduction, but it became a more loaded term as time wore on.
The show in all its manifestations has made a comfortable living for its authors, but it's not the jackpot. "It's not been a joy ride," said the elder Mr. Noto, who bristles at the suggestion that "The Fantasticks" has made a mint. In 1980, for example, the show made a profit of $24,000, he said. The profit for 1990, distributed among all of his investors, was $199,000.
Still, the original 44 investors have done well. The show's official Web site, www.thefantasticks.com, says they have received a 19,465 percent return on their collective investment of $16,500. Even so, parting with a piece after 42 years is not all business. "I have a joke now that it's harder closing a show than opening one," Lore Noto said.
The timing of the final bow of course is especially poignant, given the terrible deaths of other enduring city monuments in recent months. The message of "The Fantasticks" proved to be eerily resonant in the days after Sept. 11. El Gallo's opening words could have been written that very week:
Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh so mellow.
Paul Blankenship, who was playing El Gallo at the time, said he could hardly force the words out. The actors report that there was not a dry eye in the theater during those performances. On Sunday night, there probably won't be one, either.
I saw Fantasticks at a Fort Bragg, NC little theatre. I dragged my husband there, and he loved it.
Just one of those things that make you go, "Hmmmmmm....!"
I've seen over 20 Broadway shows in NYC this year alone, and The Fantasticks ranks with the best.
I saw 'The Fantasticks' March of 1965 - I was living and working in NYC.
A sweet show. I did it twice.
There is a cetain paradox, which no one can explain.
Who understands the secret of the reaping of the grain?
Who understands why Spring is born, out of Winter's laboring pain; or why we all must die a bit, before we grow again?
I do not know the answer; I merely know it's true.
I hurt them for this reason -- and myself, a little bit, too.
So I guess you must watch "Yes, Dear" on CBS, Monday nights at 8:30 p.m.?
Every secret prayer
Every fancy free
Everything I dared for both you and me...
All my wildest dreams
Multiplied by two
They were you,
They were you,
They were you...
Why...
Invite regret...
When you can get the sort of rape you'll never, ever forget?
The Fantasticks just isn't The Fantasticks without the rape song. The movie and the national tour some years ago replaced the song with some stupid "theatrical abduction" song. I saw a production a couple months ago(Trenton, Michigan) and was glad that they stuck with the original version.
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