by
Robert W. McDowell
January 17, 2009, Garner, NC: With its timeless
tunes by composer Harvey Schmidt and lyricist Tom Jones and irreverent
look at two moony teenagers in love, the long-running 1960 Off-Broadway
hit The Fantasticks
puts a nifty new twist on the old boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl,
boy-gets-girl-back story. No one, necessarily, lives happily ever
after; and The Towne Players
of Garner, under the direction of Beth Honeycutt, make this little
gem of a musical comedy sparkle like the Hope Diamond.
Roberto Velarde cuts a fine figure as the handsome bandit El Gallo
(pronounced “ell guy-yo” in the Spanish manner). Whether
crooning “Try to Remember,” shamelessly flirting with
the Girl (Luisa) played by Towner Players artistic director Beth
and technical director Scott Honeycutt’s daughter Arlie,
or effortlessly out-dueling Boy (Matt) portrayed by Matthew Hager,
with pretend swords, Roberto Velarde is a real swashbuckler – and
catnip to the female sex.
Matthew Hager and Arlie Honeycutt not only put plenty of personality
into Matt and Luisa, but they make beautiful music together with
their soulful duets on “Metaphor,” “Soon It’s
Gonna Rain,” and “They Were You.” Hager is terrific
as the impetuous Matt, and Honeycutt gives a star-making performance
as the moonstruck girl-nextdoor who feels puppy love for Matt,
but positively swoons for the dashing El Gallo, an older man who’s
mad, bad, and dangerous for a 16-year-old girl to know, let alone
kiss.
Tim Wiest and Richard Reid cultivate a bushel of belly-laughs
with their amusing antics as the Boy’s persnickety Father
(Hucklebee) and the Girl’s fussy Father (Bellomy), who employ
reverse psychology, in a pretend feud, to trick their rebellious
offspring into falling in love with each other. When Hucklebee
subsequently over-prunes and Bellomy over-waters their newly merged
garden plots, their showdown during “Plant a Radish” is
a stitch.
Imperially thin Holmes Morrison as The Old Actor (Henry) and roly-poly
Rusty Sutton as Mortimer the Man Who Dies provoke more chuckles
as Henry stumbles, fumbles, and bumbles through his recitations
of some of Shakespeare’s greatest soliloquies and Mortimer
flops around the stage like Shamu on the beach in the lengthiest
and most ludicrous death throes imaginable.
Owen Phillips, who plays The Mute, completes the comic ensemble;
but Towne Players artistic director Beth Honeycutt gives him little
to do, except hook and unhook a large tarp imprinted with the show’s
logo and hold up a stick to represent The Wall that divides the
young lovers. (The first time that I saw The Fantasticks,
at Duke University eons ago, a co-worker played The Mute and, during
a wonderful improvised prologue to the show, she took a push broom
and tried to sweep up the spotlight a la circus clown Emmett Kelly’s “Weary
Willy” character.)
Music director and pianist Rebecca Barnes and percussionist Braxton
Lindsay provide sprightly accompaniment that puts the musical icing
on the delicious cake that is the Towne Players’ light-and-lively
rendition of The Fantasticks. It is as fine a community-theater
production as Triangle theatergoers are likely to see this year.
