Follies

Closely related to the "that was a sh#te song, wasn't it? I hope no one applauds, I now want the early train home". It's often uncomfortable for those on stage as they are having the same thought. 

Overall I really enjoyed it. I found Imelda Staunton's entrance surprisingly moving but unfortunately for the rest of the show I didn't feel as engaged as I wanted to be with her relationship with Ben. I am not sure if it was Philip Quast or the writing of Ben, but he was the least memorable member of the central quartet for me, and I didn't really believe that he was the charismatic, successful man we keep being told he is.

I also think that Ben gets by far the weakest songs of the main characters, and The Road You Didn't Take isn't quite strong enough to establish his character or vulnerability. I felt that Too Many Mornings (one of my favourite songs) lacked impact, partly because I missed the Julia McKenzie style gorgeous vocals, but mainly because I found Ben's apparent change of heart before (and then after it) too abrupt.

However, on the plus side I thought that Peter Forbes as Buddy was wonderful and conveyed the character brilliantly, and Janie Dee's Could I Leave You was an absolute masterclass in acting through song.

The other Follies girls were also brilliant. I adored One Last Kiss. I doubt there will be a cast recording, but I would love to hear the recording of that particular song.

I wonder if Follies suffers from being both a big, showy musical with showstopping numbers, and a very intimate, small scale show when it comes to the central relationship story. It is difficult to stage it somewhere that conveys both equally well. I may try to see it again at one of the Live or Encore performances. I wonder if being closer to the characters will bring out the intimacy or nuances of their emotional journey better (although I was only about 10 rows back in the stalls).

Good old Dionysus has surely been looking down on me and smiling this past week, packing me off to see not one but two gems in the space of four days! It was time I saw The Ferryman and about time I saw Follies again having last seen it at the Shaftesbury back in the eighties. Bigger names then perhaps, not to mention another stunning set by Maria Bjornson, all scaffolding and heavy duty polythene sheeting framing the proscenium.

So, two different beasts this week, but curiously sharing some recurring themes: ghosts, love unreturned, love that’s now forbidden, things unspoken. Both feature large casts of characters, many with their own stories to tell, with secrets waiting to be spilled by others. They are gathering before a destruction. Is it a coincidence that they both feature a long staircase..?

Bravo! to Hal Prince who apparently decided that Follies suited the piece better than the original title The Girls Upstairs, for here we have the suggestion not only of Ziegfeld’s extravaganzas at the heart of the show but of human foolishness, of French madness, of large ornamental buildings serving no purpose other than to please the eye. And it’s in a vast American crumbling theater-cum-picture palace (the kind we don’t see the like of here in the UK) that the play is set, perfectly created on the Olivier’s uncomfortably large stage which dwarfs the characters who stare at the ruin it’s become, not quite believing that they once twinkled here. Hey up there, Gloria Swanson! I hope you can see this! Oh god, the set is good!

From the moment the Beautiful Girls make their awkward descent down the fire escape (their grand staircase of old presumably abandoned long ago under the rubble) we know that no matter how hard they’ll try to recapture the past, they won’t quite manage it. They’ll have to make do with what’s left in the present.

The four leads are perfect: Imelda Staunton’s woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Peter Forbes’ doting husband who’s found his own way of keeping up the role, Janie’s Dee’s brittle bitch, and Philip Quast’s successful, unsuccessful playboy who’s kind of lost his mojo. They are shadowed by their younger selves. It’s beautifully, cleverly done. The moments when Young Phyllis looks upon the woman she’s turned into with disbelief and tears in her eyes are simply heart-breaking... It’s how we feel watching Merrily We Roll Along. How did it all start so well and come to this? Sally yells at Young Ben, the two Buddies call for their dames, “Way up there! Whaddaya say, up there?” It’s completely seamless.

Each of the characters has its ghost who walks the theatre or sits among the debris of the dust-covered velvet seats in the orchestra. Each is exquisitely costumed, exactly to the period of their time serving as one of Weissman’s Follies Girls. The Whitmans’ spirits still dance around, going through their old routines. They say that once you’re a dancer, you never stop dancing…

Sondheim treats us to light and shade in this score- the book songs never quite making the same impact as the pastiche numbers judging from the rapturous applause following Di Botcher’s Broadway Baby, Tracie Bennett’s I’m Still Here and Josephine Barstow’s One More Kiss. Last night I reckon Josephine Barstow just about won by a neck. Delivered with great tenderness, duetting with her former self, all the while unknowingly studied by Weismann from a distance, Heidi reminds us all of the dangers of looking back. For there in the past lie the chances we didn’t take. I couldn’t have been the only person in the audience with tears in my eyes, could I? The orchestra- visible behind screens and scaffolding or were they?- sounded magnificent, starting sometimes with a mere whisper and finishing with a crescendo which left us in no doubt where we were to applaud!

And so to Loveland- gaudy with neon chandeliers; harsh, cold-coloured strip lights create a false proscenium; pastoral chorus boys and girls waft in with their alphabet letters which spell out where we are, or is it just where we think we should be? The obvious artificiality of it all jars with the decay of the theatre building, now clearly a metaphor for the disintegrating relationships we’re witnessing. Just how many secrets does Love have in store for us as we blissfully enter its Land? And how many secrets will one lover try to hide from the other? Follies tells us that all secrets have to resurface at some time. Just like the corpse in The Ferryman.

There are hard lessons here: when we were young we thought that Everything was Possible, echoing Frank, Charley and Mary in Merrily who think they have Worlds to Change and Worlds to Win. Oh the Follies of Youth! Sad lessons too: what is worse, for a long relationship to fall apart or for a couple to decide to stay together? “Get some rest, make plans for tomorrow…” It won’t be the first time the adult Follies Girls have had to make do.

Thanks to Dionysus, I enjoyed a large glass of wine before the show; if I’d had another in my hand by the end, I’d have raised it towards the company (no individual bows here!) as I stood to applaud.

***** from me!

How much is the programme?

£5. It has some really interesting bits in it about the show, the score and its background.

Have you called the box office? You might be able to exchange your ticket for another date. Get well soon!

Edit: showing SOLD OUT for tonight so they should be able to resell...

You go to the theatre with other people?  I'm not sure you're on the right forum!!

"The Road You Didn't Take" - Sondheim! : The Birthday Concert (2010) - John McMartin



I have always found this performance to be hauntingly beautiful, particularly the wistfulness in his eyes at the end.

As he directed the debacle that was Follies at the RAH he might pick up a few tips from this production as to how it should be done!

I'm well aware of the different versions of Follies, but after reading the Sunday Times yesterday I am now aware of the abandoned murder plot thread....that would have so changed the tone of the piece. I'd always assumed, too, that the general feeling was that Follies was a masterpiece - I've never seen it as flawed or whatever. I had seen it, though, before the Cam mac version and remember feeling that this was not as dark and heart breaking as it should be.

Perhaps the introduction of the two drag characters into Buddy's Blues was prompted by the same reason for making the photographer in 'Flash, Bang, Wallop' in 'Half a Sixpence' ridiculously camp with absolutely no dramatic justification except to get a very cheap laugh. I too would like to know why the two women in Buddy's Blues were played by men in drag. Can anybody explain?