"The Fantasticks"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how the musical play, "The Fantasticks", originally strikes the viewer as both an effective and humorous parody of the Shakespearean romantic drama, "Romeo and Juliet", and the classical Greek and Roman myth of Primus and Thisbe, upon which Shakespeare's play is based. It looks at how, when examined for its deeper theatrical and literary significance, the play's "spine", or story, and structure of theatrical staging also conveys to the viewer a more coherent explanation of the moral dilemma that underlines story of thwarted, adolescent love and the purpose of Romantic theater in general.

From the Paper:

"The distance of the wall that the children must overcome, emotionally, embodies this separation. "You must always leave the wall," is one of the final tropes underlined at the end of the play, by the narrative voice of the storyteller. In other words, in true love, one must also have distance as well as reinforcement of desire and connection. The play's use of the wall creates a connection not only with "Romeo and Juliet," but also with the Classical Greek myth of Primus and Thisbe, where the two mythical personas whispered to one another to communicate across the distance of the wall. An infamous balcony that barred the two of them from communicating physically likewise separated the romantic protagonists Romeo and Juliet."

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