Arena Stage's Artistic Director, Molly Smith and Managing Director, Edgar Dobie with the gifted collaboration of a wonderful cast, Director Amanda Dehnert and a host of other talented theater professionals, have once more delivered D.C.'s theater going public a divinely delicious confection of magical theater.

And boy is it magical !  Director Amanda Dehnert takes us into an entirely new territory by introducing the element of world-class prestidigitation into the production, which often left many audience members (myself among them) gasping with awe and wonder.

Molly Smith, waxes proud in regard to her director, Amanda Dehnert, "Amanda is revitalizing the American Theater form by taking classic productions and opening them up to new possibilities. She is an artist that I have been following for years and, under her direction, Arena Stage will explore this story in a fresh and compelling way.   And indeed she has.

The Fantasticks, in its latest incarnation currently underway at The Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C., has been re-invented and re-imagined in the otherworldly atmosphere of a defunct amusement park, Rocky Point, somewhere in Rhode Island. Eugene Lee's set is a bucolic phantasmagoria wherein one feels as if inside an old film editor's Moviola, as the dreamscape comes to life with music and song.

The Fantasticks, loosely based on the play, The Romancers (Les Romanesques) by Edmond Rostand, revolves around youthful love, the loss of innocence and the triumph of romance and love over cynicism and bitterness. Definitely a tonic for the soul in times such as these, wherein sadly we see a growing loss of the more sublime and tender aspects of the human condition commingled with a forlorn sense of futility.

Dehnert explains it thus, "The Fantasticks is profoundly about how to be human. The show comes from a place of innocence. It teaches us how to live with both the happiness and the hurt that life can introduce, while at the same time it dares us to face both and find our way in the world."

And so we are led easily into this realm of a lost world when Gallo (pronounced GAH-YO), played with gusto and an effortless, tender masculinity by Sebastian La Cause - begins to enchant us and reel us in with the most famous song of the show, Try To Remember.  While his singing voice is not of the angelic orders as is the case with his lovely co-star, Addi McDaniel as Lusia, his delivery is nonetheless full of poetical passions and the the rich tonality of a capable and nuanced interpretation.  We leave the technical and vocal higher orders to Ms. McDaniel whose clear and moving delivery is only in competition with her porcelain complexion and her handsome face, reminiscent of Claire Danes, only more youthful and nimble.

Timothy Ware effortlessly embodies the palpable beating heart of the young, heartsick boy, Matt, who dreams of marrying the neighbor's daughter - with whom he communicates over the barrier of a wall erected by both widower fathers in an attempt at uniting the fruit of their loins through the strategems of reverse-psychology.  Mr. Ware crackles with the fire of love and his eyes speak louder than his words as his body dances with determination toward the object of his desire.

El Gallo's best buddy, Nate Dendy as The Mute, mercifully doesn't play a mime in the detestable maudlin manner of most mimes.  His character is more of a silent, but playful and magical clown, every emotion registering true without need of aping nor overreaching and he carries us away into many of the evening's most memorable moments of magical mischief.

Surprisingly the show is deftly stolen, surreptitiously, by the two widowers, Michael Stone Forrest as Hucklebee and Jerome Lucas Harmon as Bellomy.  Theirs turns out to be the most kinetic chemistry of the entire show. And numbers such as, Plant A Radish, make for such festive and joyful inspiration as to make us all want to climb on the stage and share in their mutually felicitous romping and dancing, choreographed wonderfully by Sharon Jenkins.

However, the real gut buster and laugh machine is the unforgettable Laurence O'Dwyer as Henry.  From his first appearance as the leader of a  traveling duo of actors for hire O'Dwyer siezes the limelight and doesn't let go.  It is obvious he is practiced in the meticulous timing of high comedy and I was often brought to the verge of laughing tears witnessing his unbridled hamming, so skillfully calculated to bring down the house.  His collaborator, Jesse Terrill as Mortimer, is a perfect side dish to Mr. O'Dwyer's entrée. A fine comedic talent himself, Terrill's physical comedy perfectly balances O'Dwyer's vaudevillian panache with an acrobatic gusto I have not seen in some time.

Another laudable accomplishment by this team of performers is the fact that the second act doesn't slowly decline into a forcibly repressed yawn, but rather raises the stakes and lifts the audience ever higher.

Costume Director Joseph P. Salasovich, alongside the circus-like inspiration of Costume Designer Jessica Ford have dressed the characters in an array of autumnal hues that one can almost taste.  Butterscotch browns.  Pumpkin oranges.  Creamy toffees.  An effect which is heightened by the barely perceptible complexity of Nancy Shertler's Lighting Design.

And there you have it, for the price of admission.  An evening wherein one doesn't have to "try and remember.." for our hearts and spirits have been carried away into the fantasy world with nary a complaint from those of us, who against all evidence and odds, have allowed the inner child in us to be mesmerized once more.

Viedography and photographs for this report were furnished with the permission of Arena Stage and were taken by Mr. Scott Suchman