In the haze of the politically correct backlash of The Man Show, Spike TV and South Park it seems that most American consumers of culture are confused and apathetic. But how does this translate to art on campus? Are the audiences on campus picking apart the performances they see beyond the success of the directors “vision,” the vocal dexterity of singers and the effectiveness of the costume design?

This weekend Oberlin students and members of the community might answer these questions if they choose to see The Fantasticks. This musical, directed by first-year Alan Kline, is often a comedy of slapstick leanings. It is the story of two young lovers, Louise (sophomore Vernicia Elie) and Matt (first-year Brian Piper), whose fathers, played by sophomores Emma Nadeau and Maggie Keenan-Bolger, feign a feud to hoodwink their children into love and marriage.

When Matt heroically rescues Louise, the faux hatchet is buried. Their children marry, but in the second act the monotony of a comfortable relationship rips Matt and Louise’s aforesaid love affair asunder. Matt leaves Louise to experience the atrocities that make up history, and Louise is shown the pleasures of life, although in a very Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland fashion.

Elie plays the erratic and sometimes naive Louise with striking believability and sang with what seemed to be clear intent. Keenan-Bolger, who plays Hucklebee, Matt’s father with a Charlie Chaplin flare, looking particularly comfortable with the excitement and hyperbolic facial expressions necessary to carry any musical.

Although not on stage very often, sophomore Lincoln Smith steals the show with his portrayal of the swindling rapscallion, Henry. Delivering his lines with an awareness that makes the audience comfortable with his presence on stage, Smith’s portayal of Henry is like a character out of Dickens.

Overall, the musical’s feel-good comedic tone comes through, although there are moments where singers’ pitch wavers. The casts’ lively gesticulations and over-the-top expressions could remind viewers of the methods used in silent film, which are very appropriate for a musical such as this.

Performed in Wilder, The Fantasticks evokes typical reactions of laughter and, as most musicals have the potential to do, calls for well-developed skills in suspending disbelief. But more than 40 years’ worth of off-Broadway audiences can’t be wrong, right? The play was first written as Les Romantiques in the early 19th century in French as a romantic comedy and in 1901 an English woman translated the play into English. Fifty-nine years later, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt molded Les Romantiques into the musical we know today, The Fantasticks.

This musical has certainly seen its fair share of historical moments and that is clear in the some of the characters (particularly Mortimer, played by first-year Paul McKenney, who is in the first act dressed as an “Indian”) and the song that concerns itself with the fashion in which Louise should be “raped” (defined as the act of seizing or abducting). The images of “raging natives” and the use of the word “rape” are questions of context. This is where the audience’s reading of a historically specific musical such as this must be called into question. Kline said this play brings “something unique to theater…[it’s] very theatrical and honest.”

Kline acknowledges that there are depictions that might disturb some audience members, but he considers these depictions an opportunity to realize the ridiculous nature of these stereotypes. Kline did not intend to express any overt political statements about the harmful nature of these depictions. Nor does he possess any motives to educate the audience in this respect.

This play is not only a play about love, but it currently calls into question illustrations of historical periods that include elements that will be hurtful to people who have been historically stereotyped and “stocked.” Some at Oberlin may be offended, but does this mean that Kline should have chosen to replace songs and characters for more PC versions? This is up to the audiences to decide.

This musical is the most commonly produced and one of the longest-running shows in America to date. Can that many audiences be wrong? Dissenting opinions have their well-deserved place. On one hand we cannot hide from the pains that accompany history, on the other hand, do we need to depict them on the stage without the explicit motive of deconstruction?