Follies Broadway Review

I resurrect my review of Sondheim’s Follies, which opened fifteen years ago today, September 12, 2011 When the sequined ghosts of showgirls past appear at the beginning of “Follies,” a revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical opening tonight whose delights edge out its disappointments, the performers are not so much haunting the stage as sharing it. And they are not the only ghosts anymore. It has been 40 years since Sondheim’s musical about a show biz reunion debuted on Broadway, directed by not one but two future Broadway legends, Michael Bennett (“A Chorus Line”) and Harold Prince (some 60 Broadway productions…so far). Still, both New York Times drama critics panned it (“exhausting…tedious…its extravaganzas have nothing to do with its pebble of a plot….ingenuity without inspiration”), and, although it lasted more than a year, “Follies’ ost a lot of money and was considered a failure.Times certainly have changed. One of the weirdly abundant ironies that surround “Follies,” a musical that explores the disillusion and disintegration that come with the years, is that the years have been quite kind to its reputation. The new production, which originated at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and was transferred to the Marquis with just a few changes in the 50-member cast, already has rapturous devotees, some critics among them. When the character Carlotta, ex-showgirl and aging movie queen, sings one of the show-stopping numbers in “Follies,” she might as well be speaking for the musical itself: “I’m Still Here.” But with the revised reputation comes increased expectations, which may help explain my mild feeling of let-down throughout the production, from choreography to acting and even to some of the singing, especially in the first act. There was nothing outright wrong; just too little struck me as exceptional. Even “I’m Still Here” was not the thrill I expected, though the great Elaine Paige, who originated the roles of Eva Peron in Evita and Grizabella in Cats, is playing Carlotta. Her performance was not the only surprise. Luckily, some of the surprises were happy ones, especially the emergence of Jan Maxwell’s inner song and dance. Inspired by an actual reunion of performers for the Ziegfeld Follies, a stage show spectacular presented on Broadway every year from 1907 through 1931 (and then more sporadically as Hollywood movies), “Follies” takes place in the Weismann Theater, former home of the (fictitious) Weismann Follies, shortly before the old theater will be razed — “in a final burst of glory,” says the aging impresario Weismann ironically — for a parking lot. The musical focuses on the troubled marriages of two former best friends who have not seen each other for 30 years. The cleverest aspect of the interaction among the four old friends and antagonists is the employment of four other actors to play their younger selves. This culminates in a terrific scene of all eight arguing with one another in various combinations. All four of the principals do a fine job – Bernadette Peters, Jan Maxwell, Danny Burstein, Ron Raines — but the stand-outs here are Jan Maxwell as Phyllis, Follies class of 1940, and Danny Burstein as Buddy, the Stage-Door Johnny who married Phyllis’s best friend, Sally. The jolt here is that Peters, so wonderful when last on Broadway as the replacement Desiree Armfeldt in “A Little Night Music” (and indeed, so effective in most of her performances) is competent but not superlative, playing it too low-key. Part of the problem is that, although 63 years old – older than her character is supposed to be – she seems far too glamorous and put-together to deliver “Losing My Mind” as a credible dowdy and delusional middle-aged woman obsessed with her best friend’s husband. By contrast, Maxwell seems to invest far more energy both as the brittle sarcastic blonde of “Could I Leave You?” and the slinky red lady of fantasy number “The Story of Lucy and Jessie,” a performance startling in its range. Unlike the typical modern musical, most of the songs of “Follies” do not aim to advance the plot but to underscore the mood, and drive home the themes. Sondheim himself has called his show “virtually plotless.” Indeed, most of the second act is a kind of mock Follies revue, called Loveland, with the four principals each getting razzmatazz numbers to express their feelings (often with ironic juxtaposition between what they say and what they actually feel.) Many of the rest of the songs are in effect cameo performances, Follies alumnae delivering what are supposed to be their old trademark songs, often accompanied by actresses playing their younger selves (the ghosts). Sondheim set out to write songs in the various styles of popular music from the end of World War I to the end of World War II, in homage to composers and lyricists he admires, and reflecting what one might have heard in a Ziegfeld Follies show. The most memorable songs in “Follies” manage to be fresh and tuneful, while also hinting at their provenance. Imitating such optimistic pre-Depression songs as “The Best Things in Life Are Free” and “Button Up Your Overcoat,” Sondheim came up with “Broadway Baby.” There is an edge to the lyrics. The character Hattie has been through five marriages and some tough times, but she is singing a hit song from her salad days, long past:: “I’m just a Broadway baby Walking off my tired feet. Pounding Forty-second Street To be in a show” There is something touching about a person with her future long behind her re-creating the hopefulness of her youth — a poignancy that works better for being indirect. The current revival features Jayne Houdyshell as Hattie (in a replacement of Linda Lavin who performed in D.C.), and it is a smart choice, for this is a woman with a body past its dancing prime but with her energy and optimism intact. Such sophisticated subtext adds to the richness of the experience of “Follies,” but also makes it more difficult to absorb, or fully appreciate, in a single viewing. In “Follies,” Sondheim is unfailing in the cleverness of his lyrics, and a handful of the almost two dozen songs in the show are not just hummable, but hard to get out of your head. But his aim here was in part to imitate some of the most melodious songwriters of the 20th century: his two favorite composers, he’s said, are Harold Arlen (Stormy Weather, Get Happy, Somewhere Over The Rainbow + 500 or so more) and Jerome Kern (Ol’ Man River, A Fine Romance, + 700 or so more), and several songs in “Follies” are meant as homage. One suspects Sondheim was more focused on subtext and ironic juxtaposition — and less on the melodies — than the people he was trying to imitate. At least one of the ironies in this production of “Follies” was surely unintended: its presentation on the stage of the Marriot Theater, the cold, inconvenient replacement for five grand old theaters that were razed to make way for the hotel — and (indoor) parking lot — that surrounds it.