The Fantasticks

THE FANTASTICKS tells the story of a young man and the girl next door, whose parents have built a wall to keep them apart. The youngsters nevertheless contrive to meet and fall in love. Their parents, meanwhile, are congratulating themselves, for they have erected the wall and staged a feud in order to achieve, by negation, a marriage between their willfully disobedient children.

A narrator sets the imagined scene and, in due time, progresses to the role of professional abductor convincing the giddy youngsters that they are deeply embroiled in a melodramatic encounter in a garden under the moonlight. The evening itself is entirely concerned with the notion that children – of whatever age – cannot fall in love unless their love is forbidden.

The abductor pretends to fall before the onslaught of the young man, letting the boy think he is a hero when he rescues the girl from a band of villains. The night is full of moonlight and romance.

The sun comes up and the day brings an end to dreams. The lovers must be taught to face reality. The dashing vagabond, who was their guide to romance and illusion, becomes their instructor in disillusionment. It is only when he has shown the boy the harshness of the world that looks so filled with promise of bright adventure, and has let the girl see that love can be false, that they come to understand each other.