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Hannah Galt Fantasticks Writing Assignment 1. What is the difference between a major and a minor character? Who are the major/minor character in Fantasticks and why? The major characters are thoroughly developed in the work. The audience knows much about them. They are also the ones who are faced with obstacles and who the work is centered around. Minor characters play smaller roles within the work. Their roles support the plot and often assist in creating the setting. They receive less attention and are not fully developed. Major characters: Matt, Luisa, El Gallo Matt and Luisa were the characters that the musical was centered around. They face the main obstacles and are on set nearly the entire time. El Gallo serves as the antagonist. While he is not on set as much as Matt and Luisa are, he is the character that causes some of the obstacles for Matt and Luisa and disrupts the flow of things. Minor characters: The Mute, Hucklebee, Bellomy, Henry, Mortimer While The Mute does play important parts such as the wall and the rain clouds, he is obviously there for the sake of the setting. Hucklebee and Bellomy, Matt and Luisa’s fathers, are minor characters because the play is not about them. While they do set up the situation between Matt and Luisa, their purpose is that exactly as well as to push the musical forward. Henry and Mortimer are also supporting characters that do not enter the musical until later on. 2. Who is your favorite character, why? Who played their part best, why? El Gallo was my favorite character. I think that he was a more complex character than I initially realized. He first came into the play because he was hired by the dads and eventually became the antagonist. He had many of the qualities of charmers: the good looks, classy outfit, overall gentlemanly appearance. However he humanized the character by showing how quickly someone’s intentions can become clear to the audience but not the his victim. I think that Stephanie Bacastow played the part of Luisa the best. She did an incredible job of showing the emotions of a young woman experiencing all types of feelings and facing new challenges. Her facial expressions, voice, and body language all combined to completely convince the audience of the authenticity of her character. 3. With which character did you sympathize most, why? I sympathized most with Matt. Luisa left with El Gallo. He went off on a journey by himself after finding out that his dreams were essentially artificial. He was physically beaten and left by the girl he thought loved him. He went through all of this for Luisa. We can only hope that she is worth that much and more to him. 4. Did you recognize anything that reminded you of yourself in any of the characters, why? I recognize a link between Luisa and myself. Luisa gave up a steady, reliable relationship in exchange for someone more exciting and unpredictable. This can seem like a good idea at first, but it ends up coming back and smacking you in the face. She made a rash decision to leave the boy that actually cared about her for someone who was just looking for a thrill or had other intentions. It seems that the rush of emotions that often get us to make less than logical decisions impacts all girls. 5. How do Matt and Luisa change by the time the play ends? Identify exact moments of change. The play begins with Matt and Luisa dreaming of a relationship that they do not think will ever be possible. It seems that whenever something is forbidden, we like to toe the line as much as possible. It makes life exciting. They are filled with the wonder and the naivity that is not uncommon in love stories of young people. However this state of elatedness ends abruptly when the couple discovers that their fathers had been plotting to be matchmakers since the beginning. They no longer feel the magic of the night but instead feel the hot, miserable reality of the day. They experience another drastic change when Luisa realizes that Matt had been the one being beaten that she had not gone to help. She realizes the ill intent of El Gallo and the undying feelings that Matt still has for her. By the end, both Luisa and Matt are happy together and the fathers are again friends. 6. What does El Gallo mean when he says that he will remember the girl’s kiss? El Gallo says this about Luisa's kiss to earn her affection. He hopes that she will be charmed and will become more easily manipulated through flattery. 7. How are the fathers different from one another? What other characters in film and television do they resemble? Luisa’s father thinks that all plants need is water and never trims them. Matt’s father obsessively trims his plants and never gives them water. They initially seem so opposite from one another but actually could not get much more similar. They both struggle with parenting their only children and all the obstacles that come with that. This is demonstrated when they perform the song together about how “the minute that you say no” the child always feels the need to rebel against that. This is how they manipulate their children into falling in love. Because these two fathers argue and bicker but eventually do end up with a strong friendship between them, I think that they resemble Zack and Cody from the Disney Channel show, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. 8. Discuss Henry and Mortimer as characters and how effectively they were performed. What is their function beyond comic relief? Compare their theatrical histories and comment on the fact that they ended up as a pair. The characters of Henry and Mortimer were kind of like a curve ball for me when trying to understand the play. They were originally brought in as hired men to kidnap Luisa so that Matt could heroically rescue her and they would fall in love without the fathers’ secret being revealed. They are clearly minor characters within the play, thus serve to support the main characters and to push the plot forward. Mark Fowler, who plays Henry, has been in many Shakespeare plays. Throughout the musical he throws in well-known Shakespeare lines. Daniel Wagener plays the character of Mortimer. In The Fantasticks, Mortimer always pretends to die. This makes sense with a name like “Mortimer”. Wagener has been in multiple productions in which his character is killed off. It is interesting that such two distinct individuals would end up together in roles that seem to have been made for them uniquely.