July 2010 DVD Review by Joe Stead
Try to Remember: The Fantasticks on DVD
Last
year I had the opportunity to be a part of the world's longest-running
musical, "The Fantasticks" at the Waukegan Community
Players. It was my first time on the other side of the
footlights in at least ten years, and while I have no great illusions
about my acting abilities, I feel it is a good thing every once in a
while for those of us who sit in judgment of others to have a taste
of what we are judging. There is a well known adage that those
who can do and those who can't criticize, which is something I have
fought against most of my career. Playing the role of the boy's
father Hucklebee was a humbling experience to be sure. It gave
me an immediate respect and admiration for all the triple-threat
talents I review on a regular basis, those infinitely talented men
and women who make singing, dancing and acting look far easier than I
know them to be.
This little remembrance helped give me an instant portal to watching the 2005 documentary "Try to Remember: The Fantasticks," which gives us a little piece of the history and the closing of this un-pretentious little show that ran for 42 years in New York's Greenwich Village. Producer Lore Note ultimately pulled the plug on January 13, 2002 after 17,162 performances Off Broadway. To put it in perspective, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the President when Jerry Orbach first introduced "Try to Remember" in 1960, and the show out-ran 9 of his successors. It is safe to say that hundreds of actors passed through the doors of the tiny Sullivan Street Playhouse to sing Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones' exquisite score and to enact this romantic fable based on Edmond Rostand's "Les Romanesques". It was in fact more than a play or musical, it was an institution.
One of my favorite lines as poppa Hucklebee was advising my son Matt (played marvelously by my fellow reviewer Nicholas Ryan Lamb) to write the word "simplicity" fifty times to improve his style. That is a lesson many contemporary theatre practitioners should learn and take to heart. "The Fantasticks" never needed special effects, lavish scenery or beautiful costumes. The "wall" that separates the two supposedly feuding households is represented by the character of the Mute holding a stick straight out. It was original director Word Baker's concept that the actors should all think of themselves as a traveling Commedia dell 'arte troupe unfolding their wares for the audience to witness. The moon that lights this little romance in Act One is cardboard, apt to break as we are told. In the second act, the Narrator flips the cardboard moon over to become the sun, which will burnish the affair a bit.
Jones
and Schmidt met many a moon ago as students at the University of
Texas. Their collaboration, which began with a wildly
successful campus musical, lasted through such musicals as "I
Do! I Do!," "Grovers Corners" and "110 in the
Shade". They explain that their most famous and enduring
work began with an invitation to fill a one-act slot for the Barnard
Summer Theatre. The leading lady, Susan Watson not only lost
her voice but also sprained her lower back, yet she bravely went on
with the show with Schmidt singing her part from the piano and the
choreographer doing her dance steps. Even under these less than
promising circumstances, a visionary producer named Lore Noto saw
something very special and pledged everything he had to produce it in
New York.
Although it out-ran every one of its bigger name Broadway counterparts, it wasn't always smooth sailing for the "little show that could". The original reviews were mixed, the cast was unknown and the word of mouth less than spectacular. And yet it hung on somehow, often playing to less than half empty houses. At the Sullivan Street Playhouse, that could mean 20 or 30 seats, roughly the equivalent of the first two rows. According to co-producer Tony Noto, Lore's son, they gave one Wednesday matinee for a single theatre-goer, who stubbornly refused to exchange his half-price ticket. Throughout the years, it fostered many up-and-coming actors, including one whole family who played the show together. It became a symbol of immortality. Ironically enough, once the closing sign was finally posted, crowds outside the theatre began to number two to three hundred a night, all desperate to be a part of history.
I am proud to have a very small part of this show's history now too. Watching this DVD was a pleasure for me, as I am sure it will be for anyone who's had a passing connection with "The Fantasticks". At a mere 57 minutes, however, it is half the length of the show itself. While it is great hearing the reminiscences of Jones and Schmidt and some of the veterans of the show, I do feel it is also something of a missed opportunity. Something this historic had every right to be preserved on DVD with its original stage production.
The short clips we see of the Sullivan Street production are nice, but why not film the whole show and include the 57 minutes as a bonus track? Especially considering the dismal feature film distortion of the musical, which completely lost the original charm, it seems very sad that the final performance was not preserved in its entirety for posterity. Still, hearing Jones and Schmidt singing the lines "Deep in December it's nice to remember the fire of September that made us mellow" at the end is pretty powerful stuff and worth spending an hour for this bittersweet documentary.
About Joe Stead
Joe
Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has
involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing for
the past twenty-five years. He served as founder, producer and
Artistic Director of Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland
and Four Star Players in Tampa, Florida. Favorite productions
have included "Life With Father," "Deathtrap,"
"The Odd Couple," "The Miracle Worker,"
"Brighton Beach Memoirs," "You're A Good Man, Charlie
Brown" and "Godspell". He has also performed
leading roles in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin,"
"The Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and
most recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for
Waukegan Community Players. Joe holds a degree in Commercial
Art from Tampa Technical Institute. As a critic, he has
reviewed everything from Broadway to community theatre and major
regional theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey,
Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in
Sarasota, Florida.
Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America. He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers. He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene. Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays. His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).