"I liked it - but what on earth have I just seen?" was a sentiment seemingly shared by a number of audience members on leaving a full-house preview opening night of Waipukurau Little Theatre's latest production The Fantasticks this week.
After first hitting the stage in 1960, The Fantasticks has gone on to become the world's longest running musical and the longest running show in American theatre history, and with its timeless, light-hearted theme of young love it is easy to see why.
In essence, the story revolves around two neighbouring teenage lovers, Luisa, played by Keshia Fletcher, and Matt, played by Hugh Marsh, whose romance, while starting out moonstruck and starry-eyed, is tested as time progresses.
El Gallo, played by a shiny cape-clad Jon Fletcher, is the play's narrator and also on the scene are the pair's fathers - Huckabee (David Perry) and Bellomy (Edward Carleton-Holmes). These two, unaware that their children have already hooked up, conspire to use reverse psychology to bring them together, forbidding them to see each other, and building a wall between two houses, and that's when it all starts turning rather strange.
Berry and Carleton-Holmes are fabulous - they're clown-like, from costumes to characterisations - Berry with a down-home American twang and Carleton-Holmes with a slightly mincy, high-pitched shriek and a fixation with his garden.