'The Fantasticks': a new musical hits Portland Center Stage

By NIKOLENA HATTON

Broadway and live musicals have a big name, but some still wonder – what is the big deal? “The Fantasticks,” now playing at the Portland Center Stage through Feb. 5, will answer their question.

It’s the story of two innocent kids – next-door neighbors – who fall in love, but as simple, ridiculous and sappy as this sounds, the play is carefully and delightfully crafted into a unique production with a thought-provoking story while still remaining simple and to the point. There are seven real characters, and only five of them are much involved in the story.

The play starts with a song, “Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow…try to remember when life was so tender…” And you are introduced to the characters and told that they both read romances. As a result, the rest of the musical is full of references (by the two characters) to some “lovely” romance from past, often involving murder, abduction and so on. This creates quite comical, naive dialogue between the two lovers sprinkled with names like Juliet and Othello.
Early in the play, Luisa, the girl, sings a song to herself saying, “Just once…I’d like to be not evil but a little worldly wise, to be the kind of girl designed to be kissed upon the eyes. . .”

The only problem with Matt and Louisa being so completely in love (or perhaps it’s not a problem at all) is the fact their fathers hate each other so much they built a wall between their houses, supposedly to keep their kids apart. In truth, both dads did it on purpose because they knew if they said no, the kids’ romance would be guaranteed. A line from their song confirms this philosophy: “My son was once afraid to swim, the water made him wince, until I said he mustn’t swim…he’s been swimming ever since.”

By the end of the first (titled “In the Moonlight”) of two acts, they are all happy and reconciled, but anyone who knows anything about romances knows it’s a bad sign if the couple is together by the halfway point. Something horrid must happen between the there and the end otherwise your audience is sleeping from a deprivation of drama.

Thankfully, this doesn’t happen in the second scene of the Fantasticks appropriately titled “In the Sunlight,” in other words, when you chuck the rose colored glasses.

With ease, the play moves from comical and ironic in the first act to touching and sober in the second. Eventually the real love and romance emerges through the blood and tears, literally, and Matt and Louisa are all the better for it, and so is the audience for that matter.

And after you see it, then you understand why people like musicals, or at least, why The Fantisticks has endured so long. (And don’t fret, you haven’t been told everything.)