Divamensch

Richard and I saw *The Fantasticks* off Broadway on 11/6.  I had never seen it, can you imagine?  This is a historic show - - it opened in a little theater in Greenwich Village in 1960 and played there until 2002, after having played 17,162 performances.  It reopened in 2006 in a little theater upstairs in the theatre district.  I've always meant to see the show, and whadya know, Richard suggested we go see it.  He saw it years ago when it was downtown, so what would drive him to want to see it again?  He read in the NY Times that Lorenzo Lamas was in the show for a few weeks.

 

Lamas was a star in the 80s, he played Jane Wyman's hunky grandson on the prime-time soap *Falcon Crest.*  He's the son of actor Fernando Lamas and actress Arlene Dahl, and the stepson of actress Esther Williams.  I've read in his bio that he was on a TV show in the 90s called *Renegade,*, but I've never seen it.  Neither did I see him on *Celebrity Apprentice* in 2015.  For me, he is Lance from *Falcon Crest.*  Richard has always had a thing for him, and we were both curious to see if he was any good onstage.

 

Let me talk about the show first.  There are two well-known songs in the show - - "Try to remember" opens the show and "They were you" happens late in the second act.  I was a little skeptical at the intermission, the first act seemed cheesy bordering on stupid.  But I thought hey, this show has run longer than I have, there's got to be something more there.  The second act surprised me, it seemed to expose the first act and show it to be phony and false.  The second act was a little brutal that way, but couched in a well-made song-and-dance musical comedy.  It felt more than a little like Pirandello.

 

And we were both pleasantly surprised by Lamas.  His voice isn't extraordinary, but it's a nice voice, he knows how to deliver a song, and he sings in tune (one can't accept that as a given).  More importantly, he has an easy charisma onstage, his performance had a nice balance of show biz and sincerity.  I hope the producers of *Chicago* went to see this show, they should consider him to play Billy Flynn.