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more “fantasticks”

Let’s see. I have mentioned this production here. And here. And now here.

This photo. Lord. Years of romantic entanglements, disentanglements, and obsessions all collide in this one photo, this one moment from “The Fantasticks,” sophomore year in college.

The scene in a nutshell: Henry and Mortimer are attempting to abduct Luisa; Matt is fighting for his love with a xylophone mallet while The Mute looks on, ah, mute.
fantasticks.jpg

Okay. That’s me in the middle, with the codfish mouth, giving the fellers a hernia. On the left of the photo is S. And during this show, he is just S. But a few magical years down the line, we will fall weirdly in love; he will take this photo of me; we will break up, get back together, break up FOR GOOD, dammit!; then he will stalk me all the way back to San Diego — which, naturally, will make me swoon and keep me swooning to the point where he becomes Fiance #2. One must never underestimate the allure of the stalker. Later, there will be a much-needed epiphany where I realize that our insanities are not compatible and I will send him packing back to Seattle.

In the middle, wielding the xylophone mallet of death, is Billy Tom Bobby. That is his name and you must just accept it. He was Matt to my Luisa and I fell so so so deeply in love with him. In fact, I’m sure I am in love with him even in this exact moment captured on film. I bet I’m thinking, “Ohhhhhh! How I wish stupid S and stupid M would just UNHAND me and that the audience would go away and quit bothering me and expecting me to do stuff so that I could make out RIGHT NOW behind the curtains with my future husband, Billy Tom Bobby!”

I mean, I was desperately, insanely, in love with him. And he liked me quite a bit, too. He would call me “titwillow” in funny voice and, you know, I didn’t even think it was a boob joke. I just thought it was a funny word from a funny guy who should make out with me RIGHT NOW! He was very talented — and talent always got me. So, all it takes is talent and “titwillow” and I’m pretty much gone, it seems. But when he decided he didn’t like me so much anymore, I pined for him for much much longer than he was worth.

And finally ….. on the right. The fellow on the right. That’s M. We were mutually obsessed. He was obsessed with me and I was obsessed with, well, anyone and everyone else. He followed me around and leered at me and once …. he even wrote a very memorable song for me. And I really think the song says it all.

Wait. While we’re at it. On the far right is C. She was desperate to play Luisa. Instead, she is The Mute and she is silently plotting my death.

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“the fantasticks,” prelude

Sophomore year in college. “The Fantasticks.”

Freshman year was, frankly, a waste. A mad blur of make-out sessions with a guy I had nothing in common with except these marathon make-out sessions. A guy whose face glowed eerie and pale, like the moon. A guy who’d gotten my phone number off the box I was forced to wear by the seniors on my dorm floor during Freshman Initiation Day. A guy who, by this time, sophomore year, was now my ex-fiance. Yes, that’s right, fiance. He had proposed one night in the dark of the dorm lounge, his moony face the only light source, giving me a swirly rhinestone cross necklace to seal our mismatched lust. When we broke up shortly thereafter, I returned the twinkly thing for a full cash refund of 69 whole dollars. (No questions asked — Phhhew!)

So in between exhausting, sweaty fondles with McMoony and occasional box-wearing and — let’s see — watching “The Exorcist” once, as I recall, there was no time for auditioning. I’d completely abandoned something I’d always loved for my temporary lust over a tall, glue-faced boy with bad taste and excess saliva issues.

Nevertheless, after this year of walking away from the theatre, this year overflowing with creative laziness and atrophy where I learned virtually nothing beyond the exact contours of each of McMoony’s teeth, when auditions rolled around for “The Fantasticks,” I STILL thought I was da shizzle.

This was not a consensus, however.

The Music Director, a Lebanese woman named Hadil, immediately thought I sucked. Hard.

She later became my private voice coach, but at our first music rehearsal for the show, she gazed at me over her glasses and told me bluntly, in a voice low and thick: “At auditions, I did not think you could sing. You were singing in this weird belting voice, like … a cow. When I heard you sing, I wanted to die, but the director really wanted you.”

But ….. um …. I’m da shizzle, lady!!

She was still talking:

“So. You are cast now and my job is to work with you. All right. Let me hear you sing.”

I opened my mouth and —

“Do NOT use that voice you used at auditions.”

Okay. Now I was completely petrified.

I’m supposed to sing? NOW?? In a voice other than my tried-and-true high school musical belt?? But … but … you don’t think I’m da shizzle! I don’t know what to DO! I can’t even breathe! I am shaking! I might cry! Death is so SO close!

But she didn’t care. She just gazed at me over those glasses, waiting while I wavered. Her eyes were dark licorice drops. There was a twinkle there, but I saw only my imminent death. I tried to look anywhere but there. Finally, she started playing a vocal exercise on the piano, waving me to sing along.

I obeyed. And sang. Just me.

When I stopped, she was silent for a moment.

“Hm. You actually CAN sing. Good.”

It sounded like “gooot” when she said it, clipped it off. “Gooot.”

So off we went, working, working, working. Here I was, thinking I was already so far down the theatrical road — “Hurry and catch up with me, people!” — when, really, I was arrogant, stupid, lazy, full of bad habits.

But that show, that woman, that director. It was really just the beginning of the road for me.

(more to come ….)