Stephen Sondheim's Follies

Charity Gala Performance in aid of the Starlight Children's Foundation and the Kingston Hospital Cancer Unit Appeal

The London Palladium 7.15pm, 4 February 2007

Music & Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Book: James Goldman

Follies auction in aid of the Starlight Children's Foundation

Follies concert logo

presented by arrangement with Josef Weinberger Ltd on behalf of Music Theatre International of New York & Cameron Mackintosh.

Cast:


Synopsis: ( Taken from the original Braodway Recording)

Follies is set in a a dark and cavernous Broadway theatre, listed for demolition, during a reunion for all the past members of the "Weismann's Follies"; a musical revue.

First the stage is populated by ghostly figures dressed in styles of the long-ago past, larger -than- life creatures in black and white who move among the living without being noticed. Then some flesh-and -blood characters appear as well: Ben and Phyllis Stone, rich and glamorous, and Buddy and Sally Plummer, middle class and a little dowdy. The couples now fiftyish, have not seen each other for 30 years, but they were friends once, two chorus girls of the "Weismann" Follies and their suitors.

Dimitri Weismann himself arrives, old but fit and just as lecherous as ever. The theatre is being torn down, he says; a parking lot will take it's place: "You won't be coming down these stairs again." He introduces his old emcee, Roscoe, who in turn brings on, one last time, the (Beautiful Girls) dressed as they were then, but with there own ghosts shadowing them.

Scraps of information from past and present, amid the musical numbers. flow towards the audience. Ben, we learn, has done exceptionally well, a millionaire and diplomat. Buddy makes his living on the road, selling oil rigs, while Sally stays home reading romance novels. Buddy didn't in fact want Sally to attend this event but she left without him, and he has come along to find her. In flashback we see Phyllis and Sally as roommates; then mysteriously we see Young Buddy punching Young Ben.

Sally and Ben we slowly realize, were lovers, however briefly, back then, and Sally, at least, is still thinking about it. She can hardly bear to have Ben see her as she is now (Don't Look at Me).

As the reminiscences unfold, each character is joined by his or her younger self, until past starts to merge with present, and Ben and Buddy are once more standing at the Follies stage door, (Waiting for the Girls Upstairs).

These flashbacks are interrupted by the first of a series of musical moments starring other Follies girls, including Solange, a still-sultry Frenchwoman who's now in perfume (Ah, Paris!), and Hattie, whose (Broadway Baby) deglamorizes the chorus life once and for all.

More bits of the past float by, out of which Ben emerges as the mystery man -- supremely successful, yet cold, detached, "out of touch" with his feelings, as we might say today. Still, he can't help wondering what might have been (The Road You Didn't Take).

Sally for her part, can't claim that her life with Buddy has been terrible she's "still the princess, still the prize," she tells Ben (In Buddies Eyes).

Now we meet Stella, another Follies veteran, who like her sisters from the chorus line can't believe what age has done to her (Who's That Woman), she asks her mirror, in what has become known as "the mirror number." As the women sing and dance a little bit, their ghosts are pantomiming behind them.

And then there's Carlotta, a former sex symbol now struggling just to get through the day (I'm Still Here), which contains the priceless Sondheim lyric, "First you're another sloe eyed vamp, then someone's mother, then you're camp."

The marriages now seem to unravel as the confidences multiply: Ben finds his work meaningless. Phyllis's opulent life drags, Sally lives in a dream. Buddy has had a girl in every town. Buddy sick of remembering, asks Sally to leave with him, but she refuses. For a moment, in fact, it seems that she and Ben are going to run off together (Too Many Mornings).

We sympathize with Buddy, and not just because his philandering has brought him little comfort. Through all these years, he has known and tried to forget that Sally's true love was someone else. He knows, even as he play-acts domestic bliss with her, that his latest mistress is not (The Right Girl).

The last of the pastiche numbers is in some ways the most wrenching (One More Kiss), a light operatic ballad in the style of Rudolf Friml or Sigmund Romberg, is sung by Heidi Shiller, and elderly woman confined to a wheel chair, and as she sings she is joined by her younger self -- and younger voice.

The pain, the fatigue, the torture of remembering are by now beating down the four principal characters: Buddy and Sally have parted in anger, and Ben (who freely admits that he's too tired to cheat further on his wife) and Phyllis reach their crisis, as she considers divorce (Could I Leave You?).

As real life becomes just too much to bear, some sort of collective unconscious impulse propels Ben, Phyllis, Buddy and Sally into the past, where the Weismann Follies of old are still in progress. This is the remarkable "Loveland" segment that consumed that last half-hour of the original Follies. The foursome are whisked into a dream show in which each acts out his or her own principal "folly":

First they briefly recapture the days when love was real and present in their live, with (You're Gonna Love Tomorrow), Ben's promise to Phyills, and (Love Will See Us Through), Buddy's promise to Sally.

Then each is revealed in turn. Buddy, we see, doesn't want to belong to any club that will have him for a member, and in (The God-Why-Don't-You- Love-Me Blues, he acknowledges that he has never been able to love anyone who loved him.

Sally's Folly, of course, is carrying a torch for a long-dead love that probably only existed for her to begin with: she can never really have Ben, who doesn't and can't love anyone, she's on the brink of (Losing My Mind).

Phyllis can't manage to reconcile the two conflicting sides of her own personality, the ice-queen beauty and the woman of passion, which she describes as (The Story Of Lucy And Jessie).

And finally, Ben tries to celebrate the hedonistic life he's always lead, consuming things and people and throwing them away, but as he sings and dances in top hat and tails, the house of cards comes down around him: the orchestra starts playing 10 things at once, the dancers move randomly, in a stunning staged expression of his internal breakdown. "I don't love me, " he gasps, as the Loveland sequence fantasy collapses.

The night has passed, the reunion is over, and daylight streams in through the back of the theatre. Bulldozers await. Phyllis leads away the broken Ben, and Buddy and Sally head back to Phoenix together. Their illusions stripped away as couples and as individuals, what's left is what comfort they can give to one another till the end of the road. And that Follies suggests is still something.

We've all had the experience of leaving a matinee performance of a play or film so powerful that we can't quite adjust to the light of (actual) day, and so we stand outside the theater blinking, not wanting to let go. Decades after this show sent us on our way, some people are blinking still.

Sondheim, true to his own advice, has moved on; these Follies survive as just another fractured monument, at which we gaze, remembering.

Musical Numbers:

Act I

Act II

Reviews:

Colonel Moseley reviews Follies in Concert 5th February 2007

There's no denying it, the first two months of the year are grim. No amount of reality television or celebrity ice skating can lift the post Christmas gloom. I was thinking that the Mem and I needed a lift when I spotted the advert for Follies in Concert at the London Palladium on Sunday 4th. February; it was to be one evening performance and would benefit the very worthwhile Starlight Children's Foundation and Kingston Hospital Cancer Unit Appeal.

The Mem and I adore Stephen Sondheim's work and love Follies most. It depicts a reunion of several decades' of performers from Weismann's Follies on the stage of his theatre, just before its demolition. The show has everything: humour, success, failure, delusion, love and regret…the lot. Its range of songs reflects the history of musical theatre from Lehar to Rogers and from torch song to burlesque. It addresses time passing, the reality and illusion of past and present, sanity, disappointment and the way we mislead others and ourselves. It epitomises the term "bitter sweet".

We have seen the show several times: a glitzy all-star version at London's Shaftsbury Theatre, Paul Kerryson's brilliantly understandable interpretation at Leicester's Haymarket and a truly authentic production in the run-down Belasco Theatre on Broadway.

We have the CD of most Sondheim productions, but our favourite remains the gala production of Follies in Concert at the Lincoln Centre in New York starring the legendary Barbara Cook and the divine Lee Remick. The concert featured some truly marvellous moments including Elaine Stritch bringing down the house with the definitive performance of Broadway Baby.

Our seats at the Palladium were in the third row centre of the royal circle and gave a perfect view of the stage. The audience was a mixture of those that attend glitzy charity galas, friends of the musical - and many of Dorothy - and Sondheim aficionados. Whatever their origins, they made a warm and appreciative audience that helped the evening go with a swing.

The staging was simple and effective. A runway ran across the back of the set, down one side and to stage centre with a flight of ten or so red-carpeted steps. To the rear was the orchestra with a clear performance area at stage-front. Another runway went from the front of the stage into the audience the edge of the empty orchestra pit.

The show began with the moody overture as the cast walked on as though sauntering into a reunion, meeting and greeting a forming excited little groups.

Trevor McDonald set the scene authoritatively as the radio announcer and Patrick Mower took control as a larger than life -and dare-one-say, arguably a tad hammy - Dimitri Weismann. He soon called on Roscoe to welcome the Weismann Girls in his inimitable manner. Bonaventura Bottone set the standard for the evening's singing with a crystal clear rendition of Beautiful Girls. To my delight the audience responded perfectly, by loudly applauding each of the former follies girls as the processed down the stairs to centre stage, reaching a glorious climax involving the entire company.

Once the cast was assembled relationships were revisited and old illusions explored, particularly as between the four principals: Buddy, Ben, Phyllis and Sally.

Maria Friedman was a plausible Sally Durrant Plummer, gauche and provincial and still manifesting the thwarted passion of decades before. As Benjamin Stone, Philip Quast was entirely convincing as successful but ultimately exploitative and shallow.

Liz Robertson was a cool and sarcastic Phyllis and Tim Flavin, a salesman rejected by his wife, seeking comfort in the arms of his mistress.

Sally and Ben's first duet Don't Look at Me was performed crisply and lucidly and set the scene perfectly. The same applies for the Waiting for the Girls Upstairs involving the principal quartet and their younger selves excellently played by Neil McDermott, Adam-Jon Fiorentino, Summer Strallen and Rachel Barrell.

This first half was given even greater impetus by the montage of follies songs performed by "old girls". Wendi Peters and Richard Calkin got this segment on the road as the Whitmans with a spirited version of Rain on the Roof , including a very accomplished soft shoe shuffle. It evoked momories of Comden and Green's classic version at Lincoln Centre, but was better phrased -which is high praise. This was followed by a saucy Ah Paree by the ageless, indomitable - and scene stealing - Liliane Montevecchi, reprising her Solange. It was sassy, camp and a huge success with the audience, which was by now fully warmed-up.

Then came Broadway Baby - to this show what the Soliloquy is to Hamlet. Imelda Staunton, in a very fetching new-wave, mid-calf gown, carried a great burden of anticipation, not least because La Stritch herself had been advertised initially to appear in this production, albeit as Carlotta rather than Hattie.

Given Miss Staunton's talent no-one worried, nor had cause to worry. She carried it off with aplomb. Her version wasn't all pauses and deadpan a la Strich but a feisty driving number more suited to a pocket battleship. It roared to a climax that merged with the reprises from the two other songs. I always think this is a shame since Hattie loses the opportunity to bask in the glory of a really great moment of musical theatre. I guess there's a moral in that somewhere…even if I'm not sure exactly where.

After the wham-bam of the montage comes a more reflective section with a stunning The Road you didn't Take from Ben. Philip Quast's clear diction and tasteful phrasing gave the song even greater sensitivity. The flooding orchestration always reminds me of Debussy at his most lyrical. Deserved praise goes here to the orchestra and particularly its woodwind section.

There followed a touching and all too real In Buddy's Eyes from Maria Freedman. The aching void of Sally's pointless suburban existence was painted as vividly as the flowers in her garden. I can think of no higher praise than that this version moved me as much as that by Barbara Cook.

The contrast of light and shade continued with a show-stopping Who's that Woman (the Mirror Song) led with great drive by Meg Johnson as Stella Deems. The line of mature hoofers across the stage was joined by most of the company and built to a joyous crescendo and tumultuous applause. Who said you could never remember the tunes in Sondheim shows?

The first half ended with a tour de force I'm Still Here from Kim Criswell as Carlotta Campion. I remember years ago sitting in the front row of the Shaftesbury listening in awe as Dolores Grey triumphantly belted out this number sitting nonchalantly on a bar stool following a leg injury. On this evening Kim Crisswell was more mobile and built the number to a massive crescendo and thoroughly deserved the huge ovation that followed.

Act II began charmingly with the exotic Bolero D'Amore superbly danced by Paul Killick (the Mem still speaks fondly and distractedly of his shirtless paso from Strictly Come Dancing) and Alison Epsom. They were joined by Angela Rippon with dress slashed to the thigh. She danced very expressively in Mr Killick's safe and expert hands and her marvellous legs went on as far as they did in that Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show all those years ago.

Ben and Sally's next duet Too Many Mornings was for me the highlight of the concert. The song is complex and has a rhythm that seems part conversational and part thought process. Here Maria Freedman and Philip Quast seemed to have an almost telepathic synchronicity which gave the song a real pace and fluidity as though it was one voice. This allowed the emotion to flow and gave it a kind of rapturous quality that captured the fleeting magic of transitory passionate love. This quality is difficult to set to music, sing or even describe!

Buddy's opportunity to describe or justify his attitudes and behaviour came with The Right Girl. Tim Flavin attacked the song with the requisite American macho drive. This pragmatic exposition of men's needs was counterbalanced with a delicate duet One More Kiss between Heidi Schiller and her young self. This is another favourite song that evoked the fragility of old age and vigour of youth. The older soprano looks on as the ravishing voice of her younger self soars beautifully. She is proud and happy, sad and whistfully and concludes "never look back". This was a touching and meaningful duet beautifully and tactfully performed by Josephine Barstow and Charlotte Page.

The bitter sweet of One More Kiss was followed by the bitterness of Could I Leave You in which Phyllis, tired of Ben's philandering explains a few home truths. She adroitly outlines the futility of their existence together and ultimately leaves him hanging as to whether she will or will not take him for every cent he has in the American way of divorce. Liz Robertson handles a very wordy, convoluted and very Sondheim lyric masterfully: her breath control and phrasing were superb.

The final Follies section of the show folows the Loveland sequence. The young Ben, Phyllis, Buddy and Sally scampered through You're Gonna LoveTomorrow and Love will see Us Through. Their singing, acting and movement were of the highest order.

Similarly Tim Flavin attacked The God-Why-Don't-You- Love-Me Blues with a real drive and élan, ably assisted by Emma Cannon as Margie and Charlie Bull as Sally. The combination of verbal gymnastics and hoofing, making full use of the runway at the front of the stage, was brilliant.

The ribald lunacy of Buddy's Folly was followed immediately by the quiet madness of Sally's . Maria Friedman walked quietly to the top of the staircase and sang what is perhaps the ultimate torch song Losing My Mind with aching poignancy. The number was beautifully staged and lit and created a lasting memory.

Piling one contrast after another, Phyliss's Folly took the form of the ultimate upbeat vaudeville number with Liz Robertson telling the Story of Lucy and Jessie with male dancers. How she managed to combine tongue twisting lyrics in breathlessly long phrases is beyond me, but she achieved it admirably and the audience roared.

The follies concluded with Ben's folly Live Laugh and Love. Again, Philip Quast mastered a difficult lyric with some high kicking and experienced the mental breakdown that brings the proceedings to a close. Ben, Phyllis, Buddy and Sally return to their homes with their spouses crushed and numbed by the experience of being confronted with their past and present and cold reality: it wasn't pretty.

At the end of the show the audience gave the cast a deserved standing ovation. The quality of singing, acting and dance was consistently high. With relatively little rehearsal, the performers had been able to entertain, move and provide a thrilling evening.

I always think Follies is like the best work of Dennis Potter such as Pennies from Heaven or The Singing Detective. Aspects of life or memories are powerfully evoked by songs or what Noel Coward called cheap music. Such songs can often help us conceal, distort or re-write what actually went on. Paradoxically they can also trigger memories which sometimes help us recollect or work out the truth and better understand the past.

This truth isn't always pleasant, particularly when the sugar-coating is removed, but it's still the truth and that's what we are all ultimately searching for. Quite often the discovery is painful or traumatic. We are left dazed and have to go home to lick our wounds and work out how to deal with tomorrow -just like Ben, Phyllis, Buddy and Sally at the end of Follies.

That's why Follies might just be the greatest musical ever written.

Colonel Moseley website

Follies: Theatre Addicts, 5th February 2007

London Palladium, 4 February 2007, 7:15pm

The first time I ever attended a performance of Follies was on December 8, 1996 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. It was a concert performance taped for later broadcast by BBC Radio. Although the licensed concert version of Follies has a somewhat bastardized libretto (adding a completely unnecessary radio broadcaster, changing the dialogue and adding a reprise of "Waiting For the Girls Upstairs" at the end), I was thrilled by the experience. The atmosphere in the theatre was electric beyond description and the roar that overcame the auditorium when Stephen Sondheim came to bow at the end will always remain in my memory as a spine-tingling moment. Seeing this performance of Follies in concert almost exactly ten years later at the similarly-sized London Palladium and with a similarly stellar cast was a bit like a trip back in time. And although I had seen six other productions of Follies in the meantime, the show once again struck me as an irresistible masterpiece of contemporary musical theatre.

Although the show started awkwardly with the audience failing to respond to Maria Friedman's entrance, it then quickly gathered steam and the high points would be too numerous to list.

As soon as she started singing "Don't Look at Me," it became ovious Maria Friedman would be a fine Sally from a dramatic point of view. True, her voice is thin, but Friedman wisely uses it as a sign of her character's frailty. In "In Buddy's Eyes" and in "Losing My Mind," she managed to continue treading the fine line her voice allows her. I have to admit there were a couple of times when I wished her voice had been a little more powerful, though.

Tim Flavin looks a bit too young to me to play Buddy, but he managed to give some interesting substance to what I consider to be the least satisfactorily written character of the main quartet.

Nobody could doubt that Liz Robertson would make a suitably dry Phyllis. And she was in good voice, too. Her "Could I Leave You?" was very good… and she did great with my favourite (music-wise) song in the score, "The Story of Lucy And Jessie" - although she left most of the dancing to the ensemble.

Philip Quast is the one I feel like bestowing the most praise upon. Not only has he got a gorgeously silky voice, but he also played his part wonderfully, ending with a blood-curling nervous breakdown. It was a shame he was not 100% comfortable with his songs, he fell behind or ahead of the music several times, because his would have been a definitive performance.

The four young counterparts were excellent. I believe Adam-Jon Fiorentino as Young Ben is the one who impressed me most (plus he's drop-dead gorgeous, which didn't spoil anything).

As for the older parts… can you spell "wonderful?" Their only problem was that some of them didn't quite look old enough, but apart from that, what a riot they were. Liliane Montevecchi couldn't help it: she had to do a few high kicks while walking down the stairs! Her "Ah, Paris!" was a hoot, mainly because she has now become like a caricature of herself… and God does it work!

Imelda Staunton was nothing short of breathtaking in "Broadway Baby." She may have had the evening's second most gorgeous voice after Philip Quast's. It's a shame she felt she had to make some minor alterations to the music as written - although, to be fair, that was the case for almost everybody else. But it's a much bigger shame we don't get to see her doing musicals more often. The world is all the poorer for it. Meg Johnson was excellent leading the company in "Who's That Woman?" Again, they left most of the dancing to the young 'uns, who were quite excellent mostly. Kim Criswell's "I'm Still Here" was so enthusiastically received I thought the applause would never end. Deservedly so.

After the interval, the performance started with a superb staging of the "Bolero d'Amore" starting with a somewhat young Vincent dancing with a young partner before swapping her for the older Angela Rippon (Vanessa), who danced magnificently with him.

Another wonderful scene took place when operatic legend Josephine Barstow came to sing "One More Kiss" with her younger counterpart.

The only thing that annoyed me was the very un-theatrical ending of this version, with everybody staying on stage singing a reprise of "Waiting For the Girls Upstairs" instead of giving the play a proper denouement. They could have done all the reprises they wanted after that.

But that's only a minor quibble. The evening was fantastic and I hope there will be yet another one as exciting ten years from now.

Theatre Addicts website.


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