The creative team behind Arena Stage's restaging of 'The Fantasticks'

MOTHER OF REINVENTION: Director Amanda Dehnert on Eugene Lee's amusement-park set for the Arena Stage revival. (Marvin Joseph/the Washington Post)
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"You don't see so well," Lee points out. "It takes very little to do it. So then anyone dressed in black vanishes." This, he explains, was how vaudevillians created delightful bits in which top hats and canes seemed to dance by themselves.

"Of course, you can carry this to more complicated extremes," Lee continues, concluding that what appeals to him about the technique is its "sentimental simplicity."

As for hauling the actual old electric letters from the Rocky Point diner's sign on the stage, Dehnert says, "it's hard to put words to it, frankly, but they just can't be faked, you know? It's not about realism; it's about true memory. You can look up at the letters of that sign and know that thousands upon thousands of people gazed up at them."

Lee, the resident designer since the 1960s at Rhode Island's Trinity Repertory Company, adds, "I always say less is more. Except when more is better."

The Dehnert-Lee "Fantasticks" debuted at Trinity Rep in 2007 and was restaged at Connecticut's Long Wharf Theatre this fall. So it's had a few test drives before pulling into the 1,200-seat Lincoln, a cavernous space that feels like it could hold dozens of off-Broadway-size stages.

But size isn't everything; just ask Jones, who has seen interpretations of his show all over the globe. Reached at the Snapple center after a recent matinee, Jones declares that the Sullivan Street Playhouse, the show's original home, was really too snug, but that naturally, "there gets to be a point where it's too big." (He cites the Goulet tour, and the 5,000-seat hall "The Fantasticks" once played in China.)

The musical is not foolproof, and Jones affably describes misfires due to everything from bad acting to overproduction (a knock critics leveled at Jason Alexander's staging in Los Angeles last spring). When Dehnert called him, Jones was receptive to her concept in part because he had been happily involved with the Sears-Williams adaptation at Ford's. But while neither Jones nor Dehnert care to be specific, the writer didn't entirely agree with the director's choices at the Long Wharf.

Says Dehnert: "I am very fortunate that he's so supportive and interested and allows me to have my kooky little ideas, and then pushes back on things that he thinks don't make sense. So it's really a conversation, which it is with any living author on any theatrical work."

Jones says, "I think she's pulling back a little, and I think it's going to be good."

The Fantasticks

Through Jan. 10, Arena Stage at Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW. Call 202-488-3300 or visit http://www.arenastage.org.

Read Peter Marks's review next week in Style.

Pressley is a freelance writer.