Simple Little Things: Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt
The second in this season’s Preludes-Lyrics and Lyricists Series at the 92Y. Available through December 9 online.
Sixty years ago at the tiny Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, The Fantastiks opened on a threadbare budget running uninterrupted for nearly 42 years. It closed in 2002 after a record 17,162 performances having endured four decades of cultural change. Creators Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt went on to several uptown successes including 110 In the Shade and I Do! I Do! This is a valentine to the work of writers whose signature was unfussy, often fanciful production and tender, straight-to-the-heart lyrics.
Collaborators for 60 years, Tom Jones (1928-) and Harvey Schmidt (1929-2018) met in 1950 through the University of Texas’ Curtain Club. Both were drafted into The Korean War, then returned to New York City to resume writing. When the team was asked to contribute a musical for a summer program of one-acts, they decided to revise their adaptation of The Romancers (Les Romanesques) by French dramatist Edmond Rostand, leaving only one song, “Try to Remember,” from the original effort. The musical was initially meant to be a western, a genre the pair returned to in 2001’s Roadside.
“…to gather in a circle and have a story told…to experience group reaction…this is a basic need,” Jones has said. We see a sketch of the original Fantastiks set, a rod of colorful streamers that stood before a raised platform creating a pageant wagon; the cardboard sun/moon hung from a pole. Rakish El Gallo sets the scene: “Let me tell you a few things you may want to know before we begin the play. First of all, the characters, A Boy, A Girl, Two Fathers, and A Wall. Anything else that’s needed, we can get from out of this box…”
Auditions were held in a walk-up apartment on 74th Street that the pair shared with two others. Hopefuls crowded the stairs. Jerry Orbach was the first to be cast. In fact, they ran after him. No one seemed just right for The Old Actor, so Jones stepped in under a pseudonym. Later this evening, we see him at 90, in an excerpt from the role. “I been dyin’ for fifty years, ever since I was a boy. You should’ve seen me in those days. I could die off a twenty foot cliff. People would shout, ‘Die again!’ But I never did.” He remains charming.
Tickets were $3.75. Word Baker directed. Reviews were mixed. New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote, in part, “Throughout the first act, The Fantasticks is sweet and fresh in a civilized manner.” He was less enamored of Act Two. Word of mouth, however, was powerful. The musical has played throughout the U.S. and in at least 67 foreign countries.
Artistic Director/Writer/Pianist Paul Masse skillfully puts the play’s opening in context, then offers a piece enriched by Jones’ own words as well as selected songs. Jones’ quotes were mostly taken from a book he (Tom) wrote in 1998 called Making Musicals plus an unpublished (possibly future) book with a chapter about 110 In The Shade and a reprint of The Fantastiks script from the 1990s that had commentary and a foreword by Jones and Schmidt.
Masse’s playing and arrangements deftly embody those he salutes. They’re evocative, winsome, poignant. Not for a moment does one miss other musicians. Actress Beth Malone is warm and winning as the lyricist/ librettist’s poetic voice.
Katherine Henley, Zachary Piser, Telly Leung, and Mariand Torres perform “This Plum is Too Ripe (SORRY!)” from The Fantastiks, each actor complaining from different parts of the stage, conceivably filmed separately. (The piece plays in an empty theater.) Henley then sings “Much More,” from the musical replete with prefacing monologue. The voice is there, but she pushes too hard.
I saw the original production…several times, taking people.The wise, beguiling play somehow escaped being saccharine. As we climbed the stairs exiting the theater covered in small squares of colored tissue paper, spirits communally rose.
Next is Farah Alvin with “Old Maid” from 1963’s 110 in the Shade. Based on N. Richard Nash’s play, The Rainmaker, the story tells of middle-aged spinster Lizzie shackled to taking care of her family, suffering from unrequited love for the local town sheriff until con man Starbuck comes to town with the promise that he can make it rain. Except for an excess of hand movements, Alvin delivers a solid, sympathetic turn.
I saw this off Broadway seated – a first – in the front row. We were given (much needed, it turned out) plastic sheeting in anticipation of the theatrical heavens opening up.
Brandon Victor Dixon, intermittently reciting bits of monologue from various plays, gives us a bit of 1969’s “avant-garde fable” Celebration: “…and so the people gathered by the fire and drank and sang and made up plays. If you will trust us with your imagination, we’ll try to make this space a place for celebration.” Spotlighting signature themes, it never garnered an audience.
“Mellisande,” (The Rainmaker) is infectiously swashbuckling in the capable hands of Leung. The artist delivers a whosh of enthusiastic storytelling. Also very effective at the other end of the spectrum is Alvin’s tender “Simple Little Things” from the show: “All I need beside me is someone to have and to hold/Someone beside me as we grow old…” Sustaining emotion between phrases keeps us engaged.
We then hear Beth Malone beautifully enact the lyrics of “My Cup Runneth Over (with Love)” – a title borrowed from the 23rd psalm. 1966’s I Do! I Do!, in which it made its debut, is the story of a marriage from1895 to 1945. It ran about a year and a half, then toured. Walter Kerr wrote that the material was “on the whole barely passable, a sort of carefully condensed time capsule of all the cliches that have ever been spawned by people married and/or single.”
Leung and Torres take us back to The Fantastiks with an appealing “They Were You” sung by the boy and girl having returned from separate adventures. Dixon then performs El Gallo’s “Try To Remember” which lacks resonance and gravitas. We see images of The Fantastiks posters over the years.
With Masse at the helm, future Lyrics and Lyricists in this series are likely to be entertaining and intriguing
Photos Courtesy of the 92Y
Jones & Schmidt: Hidden Treasures, 1951-2001, a 2-disc set produced by The Musical Theater Project and Harbinger Records as part of their Songwriter Showcase Series
NEXT: RODGERS, RODGERS, AND GUETTEL: STATUES AND STORIES
Premiere date: November 23, 7 p.m. ET
Runs through December 23
