The Fantasticks

[first lines]

El Gallo:
Let me tell you a few things before we begin the play. First of all, the characters: a boy, a girl, two fathers. It is hard to know what is most important or how it all began. The boy was born, the girl was born, they grew up - quickly - went to school, became shy in their own ways and for different reasons. Read romances, studied cloud formations in the lazy afternoon and instead of reading textbooks tried to memorize the moon.

Hucklebee:
There is a great many things I could tell you about myself. I was once in the navy - that's where I learned horticulture.

Hucklebee:
Now I decided you need to be married, so I went wife shopping and I found you a pearl!

[from the other side of the wall Luisa gasps]

Hucklebee:
There's that sound again.

Matt:
What if I prefer a diamond?

Hucklebee:
How dare you prefer a diamond when I just offered you a pearl!

[speaking of Luisa]

Bellomy:
I'm her father and believe me it isn't easy. That's why I love vegetables - they're so dependable. You plant a radish, you know what you're about... you don't get a turnip or a cabbage. Why, with children, I thought I had planted a turnip or at worst, perhaps, an avocado - something remotely useful. What need have I for a rose?

Bellomy:
If they knew we wanted them to wed...

Hucklebee:
A pre-arranged marriage...

Bellomy:
They'd sooner be dead.

Hucklebee:
Children...

Bellomy:
Lovers...

Hucklebee:
Fantasticks...

Bellomy:
Geese!

Hucklebee:
How clever we are...

Bellomy:
How crafty I know...

Hucklebee:
To manipulate children...

Bellomy:
You merely say, "No".

El Gallo:
The play is not done / Oh, no, not quite / For life never ends / In the moonlit night. / And despite what pretty poets say / The night is only half the day. / So we would like to fully finish / What was foolishly begun / For the story is not ended / And the play never done / Until all of us have been burned a bit / And burnished by the sun.

[El Gallo has presented his itemized bill for his fake abduction of Luisa to Bellomy and Hucklebee]

Luisa:
You mean it wasn't real - the bandit, the moonlight?

Hucklebee:
We arranged it.

Luisa:
But the feud...

Matt:
And the wall...

Bellomy:
Built to fall.

Matt:
I don't believe it.

[hands Matt the bill]

Hucklebee:
Read on MacDuff.

Matt:
Beyond that road lies adventure!

Luisa:
I'm going to roll my hair down and go swimming in the stream.

Luisa:
Is it fun to be a bandit?

El Gallo:
It has its moments.

Luisa:
Tell what is your favorite plunder!

El Gallo:
I steal fancies; I steal whatever is treasured most.

Luisa:
Precious rubies?

[indicating her mother's necklace made of paste diamonds that Luisa treasures]

El Gallo:
Precious rhinestones.

Luisa:
Rhinestones!

El Gallo:
They can be precious. Depends on your point of view.

[El Gallo is fleeing after stealing Luisa's necklace and knocking Matt unconscious when he tries to prevent the theft]

El Gallo:
There is a curious paradox that no one can explain. / Who understands the secrets of the reaping of the grain? / Who understands why spring is born out of winter's laboring pain? / Or why we all must die a bit before we grow again? / I do not know the answer / I merely know it's true / I hurt them for that reason / And myself a little bit, too.

Luisa:
It's my bandit!

El Gallo:
Your bandit, yes.

Luisa:
What are you doing up in that tree?

El Gallo:
Growing ripe.

Luisa:
Don't grow too ripe or you'll fall.

El Gallo:
Very wise.

Luisa:
What do you see from up there?

El Gallo:
Everything.

Luisa:
Really?

El Gallo:
Nearly.

Luisa:
Do you see Matt?

El Gallo:
Do you care?

Luisa:
No. I just wondered. Can I climb up there beside you?

El Gallo:
You can, if you can.