The Fantasticks
by
Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones
Sundog Theatre, Staten
Island’s newest performing arts
organization, is teaming up with Wagner
College Theatre to present summer fare for
the Island. Their first venture is the Tom
Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical,
The
Fantasticks, which ran off-Broadway for
nearly 42 years and holds the title of
world's longest-running musical. It will be
presented at the newly renovated Stage One
Theatre, across the street from the main
campus.
Wagner was seeking a professionally
oriented company with which to co-produce
shows in its intimate 96-seat Stage One
space, and chose Sundog Theatre. Sundog
produced two productions within the last
year at The Muddy Cup’s 75-seat back room
theatre. Its most recent
Scenes from the Staten Island Ferry
were six
one-act plays written, rehearsed, and
performed within 24 hours. The COAHSI arts
council-funded production sold out nearly
all performances and garnered audience
praise.
Sundog’s artistic director, Susan Fenley,
is a professional performer who teaches
public speaking and mime at Wagner College
and Paper Mill Theatre. Christopher Catt,
chairman of Wagner’s theatre department,
and Ms. Fenley agreed on the collaboration
and choose to begin with the musical The
Fantasticks. “Sundog had never done a
musical and Wagner is known for its
wonderful, large musical productions,”
states Ms. Fenley. “We thought an intimate
production like this would work well.”
Wagner has renovated its Stage One space
that has not yet been used commercially.
“We wanted to produce shows in the summer
as well as throughout the year,” says Mr.
Catt. “And our presentation of The
Fantasticks extends the theatre season on
this part of the Island and inaugurates a
new space.”
Ulises
Giberga and Eric Devlin are the fathers of
the young lovers.
Wagner College Theatre is
known for its well-staged musicals that are
popular with audiences. Students from all
over the US audition for the College’s
theatre department. Many of its graduates
go on to appear professionally on Broadway,
throughout the country, and in the film
industry as steadily working performers and
technicians.
The co-production provides
the opportunity for students to work on
professionally oriented productions and is
a venue for seasoned local talent and
professional performers. The 96-seat Stage
One is a fully operational theatre with
tiered, cushioned seating, parking, and air
conditioning in the wooded setting of
Grymes Hill.
The
Fantasticks performances are July 24
thru August 3, 2003.
Director: Christopher Catt
Producers: Susan Fenley, Christopher Catt
Book & Lyrics: Tom Jones
Music: Harvey Schmidt
(photos: Phil Hickox)
Lee
Cavellier, Leah Rohrer, and Susan Fenley as
The Mute
John
Scamardella and Bob Elia
Reviewed Friday, July 25, 2003 By Todd Hill, Staten Island Advance
Try to remember the first time you fell in love, and enjoying "The Fantasticks" will be easy. You needn't be in love to see it; just the memory of it will do.
This is a play that depends on our collective experience to be appreciated. It speaks in a language so broad and rudimentary, so devoid of specifics, that only by touching our most basic emotions can it be assured of reaching us.
The current production of "The Fantasticks" being staged at Wagner College's Stage One, the first and perhaps inaugural collaboration of the college's dramatic talent and the relatively new Sundog Theater troupe, reaches its audience with ease.
A tale of young love that inevitably throws us a curve of youthful disenchantment in the second act, only of course to tie it up neatly with a bow before the final curtain -- along with a reprise of the show's infectious signature tune, "Try To Remember" -- "The Fantasticks" is a simple pleasure. It can also be elaborately fanciful, and this staging embraces that aspect as well. There are times when what transpires on stage is just plain weird. Although similar in story, tone and reputation, this is no "Our Town."
at left: Richard Rice Alan & Leah Rohrer
As our young couple in love, Luisa and Matt, Leah Rohrer and Lee Cavellier, are solid and steady. Cavellier may be the sturdier actor, Rohrer by far the better singer, but together they possess something even more vital. While Rohrer has a retro June Allyson air about her, Cavellier's demeanor suggests an earnest Jimmy Stewart; at one point, to suggest boldness, he unbuttons his sweater. We can picture these two personalities together with ease.
Also well cast are Ulises Giberga, a new face to us, and Staten Island community theater stalwart Eric Devlin as the teen-agers' fathers. Both may be too imposing physically for the fussy characters they play, but they've managed to make themselves smaller for the occasion -- no mean feat in such a small performance space.
As the itinerant imposters Henry and Mortimer, Bob Elia and John Scamardella are pure instinctive scamps, one grandiloquent, the other clownish, while the proceedings are ultimately held together by two stage managers of sorts -- one who speaks, sings and whirls about a great deal while the other never says a word.
Susan Fenley, a highly talented mime, is a constant presence as the Mute, even when hovering in the background. Richard Rice Alan's El Gallo, meantime, another new face in this borough, gives a commanding performance. He's dashing, debonair and deliciously devilish (indeed, there aren't enough words beginning with the letter D to describe his debut).
"The Fantasticks" is a musical, for all you neophytes out there, but its many numbers are gentle rather than rousing, just as its depiction of free-falling love is quiet and contemplative. This is a script after all in which an ecstatic Luisa exclaims that she “can't wait to touch my eyelids, because they're different every day."
As this show's unprecedented long life across the harbor suggests, audiences have never needed a translator to understand such sentiments. Director Christopher Catt clearly comprehends this as well. He and his cast and crew have given us a "Fantasticks" that sweetly blows in our ear.
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