The Fantasticks: Plato’s Cave Allegory

In 2008, six years after the closure of Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s Off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks, the beloved musical returned to New York City. Forty-two years, it seems, was not a long enough period after all for this record-breaker, and besides, no one seemed unhappy with the decision.

When the musical came to fruition in the early 1960s, the beat generation saw itself in the tension of the opposites of the work (the ideology of the young versus the ideology of the over 30s) and the dissonance caused by the current political unrest of that time. . The play approached the generational needs of the 1960s and continued even further. But today in 2012 we are going through a different kind of turbulence and a lot has changed since The Fantasticks it was written. So why has this musical endured? Why can’t we get enough of their lines and letters? What is our connection? Why are we so in love with this play?

A familiar plot

The answer may lie in the underlying archetypal plot of the script. Act I opens in the sweet innocence of the moonlight; The second act opens in the harsh reality of the day. The boy Matt and the girl Luisa thrive on their illusions in the first act, but find a painful awakening in the second. El Gallo, “the rooster” and professional kidnapper hired by Hucklebee, gives way to daylight, literally but also symbolically. He has come to guide Matt and Luisa on separate journeys in which they will leave their innocence behind and become initiates in the world of experience.

To the light of the Moon

Matt and Luisa’s parents build a fictitious feud and build a wall between their houses to encourage their children to fall in love, relying on the age-old temptation of the forbidden to get the job done. It works, and when the two lovers meet secretly, in the moonlight, of course, they promise each other love. To create the illusion of resolving the dispute, Matt’s father, Hucklebee, hires El Gallo to stage Luisa’s kidnapping, allowing his son Matt to heroically rescue her and put an end to the ruse. Luisa’s father, Bellomy, agrees, but a happy ending in the moonlight can’t be real.

In the daylight

“His moon was made of cardboard,” El Gallo tells us. In daylight, life takes on a less subtle hue and reality casts a harsh glow. All four sing: “What at night seems oh so scenic may be too cynical too soon.” Suddenly dissatisfied, the boy and the girl separate to find a solution to their concern. Matt ventures out to drink and gamble and find a glittering world full of adventure while Luisa yearns to be kissed in the eyes by El Gallo, who will take her on a journey to see the world, dancing forever and ever. To do so, he must put on a mask to prevent him from seeing the truth. When Luisa refuses to accept this world as just an illusion, the deception of smoke and mirrors, El Gallo charges the usual price for self-deception: he must renounce what is worth the most, in this case the necklace that belonged to him. Mommy. After the sacrifices, Luisa finally runs into Matt, some kind of prodigal son, on the way back home, and he also admits that it was silly. The girl and boy have been deeply wounded, but they have also seen the light of wisdom through their losses. They sing: “All my craziest dreams multiplied by two … it was you.” The boy and girl return home after their trip and find that their dreams had already been fulfilled from the beginning. With this new awareness, it begins to snow, a symbol of new beginnings, new life.

The allegory of the cave

If the plot sounds familiar, you should. It was taken from Plato’s 5th century BC allegory of the cave, Book VII Republic. Plato explains it to his student:

Humans are chained from birth inside a cave lit only by a fire that burns near the entrance and casts shadows on the far wall, which the prisoners believe is the only reality they have ever known. Once freed, they reluctantly abandon the comfort of their illusions. They are led by a figure who teaches them about the outside world of the cave, dragging them up a steep hill so that, having prepared little by little to adjust their eyes to the growing sources of light, they can finally look directly at the sun. .

Life / Death / Rebirth … Again

The allegorical character of El Gallo in the work is not human at all, but a symbol of the price of ours. hamartia, the decisions we have made, without knowing at the time out of ignorance or perhaps lack of awareness that they were mistakes. As Plato so wisely instructs, making mistakes in judgment is often the only way we will grow up and cope with the real world, at whatever level it is. This life / death / rebirth motif reminds us again and again of the hero’s journey, the cycle of the seasons in which Persephone emerges from Hades in the spring to bring new life to earth and the healing of wounds in all five stages. of romance. that gives hope to all our relationships. The plot is not new, some say that it is genetically encoded in us, but we will always be intrigued and even surprised by its familiarity.

Maybe we love The Fantasticks because, in our naively narcissistic way, we recognize each other in each character’s joy, in each of their mistakes and, ultimately, in their humble gratitude for second chances. Every time we see the work or even listen to its lovely score, we remember where we have been, but also where we are going. It is not surprising that Homer expressed these same thoughts centuries ago: “Even his pains are a joy long afterward for someone who remembers all that he wrought and endured.” El Gallo also opens and closes the work with the lyrics: “In December it is good to remember …”

The movie

For the less fortunate who have never seen a theatrical performance of The Fantasticks, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt also wrote the script, which was released in 1995. Just a slight departure from the play with a more detailed and versatile setting, the film requires less imagination but includes all but one of the same musical numbers and a few lines. additional, although the poetic quality has not been maintained. In the film, El Gallo is the master of a carnival, the darkened tent that resembles Plato’s cave quite well. What the writers do accomplish, to their credit, is an intensified version of the symbolism. For example, when Matt and Luisa sing “Soon It’s Gonna Rain”, they are sitting under a tree while high on its branches, El Gallo stands up, orchestrating everything from sound effects and a chorus to magical fairy dust she sprinkles on the lovers below. The tree is the life of El Gallo, so when he has to take Luisa out of the allegorical cave of the second act, the lessons he teaches her begin when she climbs and sits next to him on that same tree. Because you want the exciting and slightly dangerous life that think she has, she asks him, there in the tree, to take her with her and dance forever and ever.

For students

Symbolism abounds throughout the film on the tree, the kiss on the eyelids, the necklace, the two houses and the wall between them, the old Romeo and Juliet movie flickering on the wall of the dark carnival tent, the road leading to the carnival and back home. , the mask, the end of smoke and the magic of mirrors, and the dances of life and illusion performed at all times. Students as young as high school age who watch this film have the opportunity to learn about the allegory of the cave and the myriad archetypal symbols that permeate the script in a way that no other literary work can present so effectively. However, the obscene carnival humor in a short scene should be omitted for its lack of decorum and its useless contribution to the play. However, students who watch this movie will never see another again without realizing the secret language of symbolism, and once the symbolism is communicated to students in film, their understanding of archetypal literature is one step away. .

For more information on The Fantasticks, see the following:

Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. Boston: Back Bay, Little, Brown and Co., 1969.

Jones, Tom and Harvey Schmidt, The Fantasticks. New York: Applause, 1964.

Plato. “The Republic II”. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Tthe Portable Plato. Ed. Scott Buchanan. New York: Penguin, 1977, 327-28.

O’Connor, Susan. Language dance. Bloomington, IN, 2008.