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FOLLIES may be the strangest of all Broadway masterpieces; after 40 years, it’s still the most avant-garde work of Stephen Sondheim’s career.
It’s easy enough to make the show sound linear: set in 1971 (which was present-day when the musical was written), it takes place at a theatre that had, for some decades, housed the Weismann’s Follies musical shows, but is now about to be torn down and turned into a parking lot. A group of Follies performers from the 1930s and 40s, hosted by Dimitri Weismann himself, have come to the darkened, emptied-out theatre to salute their pasts and air out their dissatisfaction with their presents. Chief among these are 2 couples: Sally and Buddy Plummer (Bernadette Peters and Danny Burstein) and Phyllis and Benjamin Stone (Jan Maxwell and Ron Raines). Back in the 1940s when Sally and Phyllis were showgirls and best friends, Ben was Phyllis’ boyfriend but secretly courted Sally as well; now Ben is a millionaire and Sally yearns for what she remembers as the love of her life.
That’s pretty much the narrative of the musical, but Follies isn’t fundamentally about its narrative. Indeed, much of the first act has little overt storyline, instead following the characters almost formlessly around their reunion, dialogue interspersed with the former performers reenacting some of their old musical numbers. What makes Follies remarkable and to some extent enigmatic is a theme underlying all this: the relationship between the Follies performances themselves, content and style, and the crises afflicting the characters. Visually, the Weismann theatre is inhabited by ghosts, unseen by the modern characters but sharing space with them at all times. Some of them are the youthful versions of Sally, Buddy, Phyllis, Ben and other characters, while others are observers, outfitted in almost godlike versions of the old-time costumes.
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As you might expect, tackling a project like Follies is not a task to be taken on lightly. The legendary original production, directed by Hal Prince and Michael Bennett, and with sets by Boris Aronson, won 7 Tonys (although not Best Musical, which went to Two Gentlemen of Verona) and ran more than a year on Broadway, but was a tremendous financial failure. Subsequent productions and revivals have routinely changed songs and the James Goldman book, trying to find a clarity (and some sense of redemption) in the difficult material.
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Follies is also a cornucopia of splendid supporting roles–in what other musical do landmark numbers like “Broadway Baby” and “I’m Still Here” go to minor characters?–and they’re played wonderfully here. Most prominent is Elaine Paige as Carlotta, who gets “I’m Still Here,” and other notable parts are played by Mary Beth Peil, Rosiland Elias, Susan Watson, Don Correia and Jayne Houdyshell. The ghostly young people are represented by, among others, Lora Lee Gayer, Kirsten Scott, Christian Delcroix and Nick Verina.
Although no revival of Follies will probably ever be as spectacular as the Aronson original, Derek McLane, Gregg Barnes and Natasha Katz provide sets, costumes and lighting that are atmospheric and evocative of the dim past and troubled present. Warren Carlyle’s choreography, especially in the “Who’s That Woman” and “Lucy and Jessie” numbers, is exceptional.
Any production of Follies is an event, because it’s the rare musical that reveals more shadings and possibilities the more it’s delved into. (In this production, it’s interesting to view the show as a companion piece to Company, Sondheim and Prince’s previous musical, and its more comic analysis of bad marriages.) The show will always be spectacularly problematic–in a way, a production that solved all its mysteries would be most problematic of all–and this version, anchored by Maxwell’s brilliance, particularly demands to be seen.