DVDs: Musical Documentaries
While nothing could be more triumphant than a show that breaks the world's long-run record, the closing of the off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks in early 2002 after a forty-two-year run was an inevitably sad occasion. For The Fantasticks, which opened in the spring of 1960, represented the only remaining vestige of the golden age of off-Broadway and of New York's theatrical golden age as well. No one wanted to see it go, and when the seemingly now-and-forever show and its Sullivan Street Playhouse went away, it was clearly the end of an era.
Just the thought of it is enough to bring tears to the eyes of TV weatherman Ira Joe Fisher in the 2003 film documentary Try to Remember: "The Fantasticks", recently released on DVD. Fisher played one of the show's fathers during the second half of the '90s, and recalls it as one of his happiest times. And he's but one of several cast members interviewed in this interesting, hour-long film. Jerry Orbach, the original El Gallo, recalls thinking back in 1960 that the show would either close immediately or have an historic run of about five years, like his previous off-Broadway vehicle, The Threepenny Opera. The original leading lady, Rita Gardner, remembers auditioning by singing "Over the Rainbow," and we also hear from Susan Watson, who had Gardner's role in the pre-off-Broadway and TV versions, and from F. Murray Abraham, who played several roles in the off-Broadway production during the late '60s.
Other interview subjects naturally include the show's authors, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, who trace the musical's origins from a one-act at a 1959 Barnard College summer theatre festival. Jones says that the show lasted because it was not of its time but was instead a timeless fable and stylistically experimental. Schmidt recalls the day the melody of "Try to Remember" came to him.
Jones and Schmidt talk about the show's mixed reviews, The Fantasticks' late-'80s trip to China, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame TV production. Schmidt starts to discuss the film version, but seems to get cut off. Jones credits the show's often overlooked director, Word Baker, with contributing some crucial touches to the piece.
Liz Smith, who knew Jones and Schmidt from the University of Texas, recalls how reassuring it was to know that one could always go back and revisit The Fantasticks. TV host Joe Franklin says he attended the opening night with singer Rudy Vallee and predicted that the show wouldn't run. Tony Noto, son of the show's producer, Lore Noto, believes that the show's secret was that it invited you to use your imagination. Producer and theatre owner Ben Sprecher maintains that The Fantasticks closed only because Noto was too sick to continue to fight the battles necessary to keep it going.
Academics contemplate the show's themes and its importance in theatrical history. The show's long-term stage manager notes that the show drew Japanese tourists, who loved it back home and wanted to see the New York original. The box office manager recalls average houses of twenty or thirty people, and days when she didn't know if there would be an audience at all. Tony Noto remembers the day the cast was forced to give a performance for an audience of one.
Footage includes scenes from the show with its final company, preserving the Sullivan Street Playhouse's unique layout. It's noted that while no one involved wanted to take that theatre for the show, all of its shortcomings became part of The Fantasticks' staging. We see Lore Noto speaking at the curtain calls of the final performance, and hear from fans what the show meant to them. Other footage allows glimpses of a Moscow and Japanese production, and of a recent staging in Utica, N.Y. which reminds us that, while the flagship New York production may have closed, The Fantasticks will never leave the stages of colleges and community theatres.
Directed by Eli Kabillio, Try to Remember is inescapably touching. One would have liked it to be about a half-hour longer and to delve more deeply in a number of areas. More performance footage would have been welcome, and one hears too little from Orbach, for example, who is caught only before the final show. Still, the film is a sweet tribute to a piece of theatrical history, and will be of value to future theatre students and historians.
The DVD bonuses include additional interviews and a gallery of archival photos and posters, including one from the Fantasticks stock production that co-starred newcomers Liza Minnelli and Elliott Gould.
CHILDREN WILL LISTEN PBS Home Video
One of the productions of the Kennedy Center's 2002 Sondheim Celebration was Into the Woods Jr., the 1987 Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical as designed and performed by young people. Directed by Charlene Gilbert, the charming, one-hour documentary Children Will Listen follows the nine-month development of the production, during which 140 students fourth to eighth grades from seven Washington, D.C. inner-city public schools are led through the process, under the supervision of a quartet of adult, professional teaching artists.
Narrated by Woods original cast member Bernadette Peters, the film commences with the students being introduced to the property and starting to conceive the designs for the costumes and sets. We see the auditions, which result in fifty-two students chosen for two separate casts, scheduled to perform twenty-two performances at the Kennedy Center's American Film Institute Theatre. Then it's on to the rehearsals, culminating in an opening night with Sondheim in attendance.
In the film's most amusing moment, one of the two young women selected to play the Witch is clearly disgruntled to learn she's not to be the only Witch, and that she has to share the role with another student.
Sondheim sums the film up by saying it depicts "a group of kids putting on Into the Woods and how, in doing so, they get interested not only in the theatre, but in their own imaginations," while also demonstrating "the pride and joy the kids have in accomplishing what they do." Without hammering it home, the film makes a succinct point about how salutary the results can be when kids and the arts come together.