An enchanting "Fantasticks"

PARK CITY — In “The Fantasticks,” boy meets girl, boy loses girl and boy gets girl back. But it’s more — much more, to borrow a lyric — than a simply told fable. It’s a blissful celebration of the art of theater.

The Broadway in the Mountains production, at the Egyptian Theatre through Sunday, is a lovingly crafted tribute to the original staging of “The Fantasticks.” The show debuted in 1960 at Greenwich Village’s 153-seat Sullivan Street Theatre and continued playing there for 42 years, becoming the world’s longest-running musical and creating a record unlikely ever to be equaled.

There is a legion of theatergoers who recount their visits to the off-Broadway landmark, with its half-oval seating arrangement that required patrons to walk across the stage to their seats, with wistful accounts of seeing the iconic roles performed by Kristin Chenoweth, F. Murray Abraham, Glenn Close, Elliot Gould or Liza Minnelli.

This is an enchanting “Fantasticks,” with insightful performances and wonderful music. Director Terence Goodman retains many elements of the milestone production and juxtaposes reality with theatrics. His decisions underscore the whimsical allegory about the romance of a young couple, Matt and Luisa, who find their relationship tested by their meddling fathers and the bandit, El Gallo. Goodman wisely relies on his skilled actors to invite audiences to recall their own memories of this delightful musical or to experience its joys for the first time.

New York actor Dennis Parlato takes a mature approach to the swashbuckling role of El Gallo, the musical’s narrator and puppet-master. Having played the role, after being cast by the show’s creators, in the Sullivan Street production and the New York City revival, Parlato knows the part of El Gallo well. Firmly understanding the half-sentimental, half-cynical tone of his character, the actor makes the philosophical storyteller accessible and familiar. His singing of the tender “Try to Remember” is just right.

The trip to Park City would be worth it alone to bask in the performances of Parlato and four other startlingly talented actors. Jim Dale as Henry, the enfeebled Shakespeare thespian, and Andy Johnson as his sidekick Mortimer, the specialist in dying scenes, milk all the humor in their roles as they participate in El Gallo’s raid to warn Matt of the hardships of the world.

Masterful entertainers Jonathan McBride and W. Lee Daily play the conniving widower fathers who trick their offspring into falling in love. Their Tweedledum and Tweedledee performances wholly embrace their characters’ vaudevillian roots and further delight in their wink-wink additional roles the director has devised.


While it’s to his credit that the director has cast actors the same age as their characters, Gracie Brietic and Taylor J Smith charm and give their all to their roles but ultimately disappoint. To be most effective, the couple’s progression from puppy love affection to become more world-aware with a wise, realistic view of love is readily apparent.

As Luisa, the lovely Brietic is full of wide-eyed wonder in “Much More” and has a lovely voice but her upper register is noticeably weak. Smith makes an appealing “callow fellow,” and his “They Were You” is tenderly sung but “I Can See It” should be more full-throated.

Musical director Anne Puzey leads the exemplary accompaniment of piano, harp and percussion and does credit to the timeless melodies.

The squares of multi-colored confetti tossed into the air are justified at the show’s conclusion. “The Fantasticks” is a show that lives up to its name.