The Fantasticks
This may be the most audience-participatory musical of all time. The characters are generic - a boy, a girl, fathers, etc. On a minimalist stage, the performers take an invisible step back, so you can put yourself in their shoes and relive your wake-up call from innocence to experience. El Gallo, it turns out, isn't the one trying to remember, and when Matt and Luisa sing "Soon It's Gonna Rain," you reach for an umbrella. Lamb's Players have given the musical, which ran for 17,000-plus performances, an update. Not all of it works. The set's Vegas-gaudy, especially the yellow circles on the rear wall, which look like Lawrence Welk's bubble machine on 'roids. Director Deborah Gilmour Smyth's cast is multicultural, a refreshing change from the whitebread original (1960), in which outsiders are Other, and the El Gallo is Latino, for once (though his voice sounded strained, Mauricio Mendoza gave the abductor strong physicality). The game ensemble cast, including Craig Noel Award-winner Antonio T.J. Johnson, boasts a standout performance: Robert Smyth has a lark as Henry, the old thespian for whom trying to remember - anything - is a tale of untold heroism.
Worth a try.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, July 26, 2009
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm |
| Thursdays, 7:30pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 4pm & 8pm |