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Berkshires Review
Berkshires ReviewFollies
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Good Times and bad times
I've seen them all But I'm Still Here --- Carlotta from the Follies anthem song. |
Jeff McCarthy as Ben sings "Live, Laugh, Love" surrounded by Carissa Lopez, Rose O'Hara, Michelle Dyer and Bettina Tyler-Lewis
(Photo: Kevin Sprague) |
There's only one problem with Julianne Boyd's ravishing, beautifully performed and still tantalizingly against the traditional grain revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. It's only playing until July 16th.
After launching the endearing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on its award-winning journey to Off-Broadway, Broadway (nominations and awards included a Tony for best book and best featured performer, Barrington Stage has launched its 2005 Main Stage season with this splendid 75th birthday tribute to contemporary musical theater's most influential and groundbreaking composer-lyricist.
In case you're not familiar with this show-biz saga, it's set in 1971 in an about-to be demolished theater, where impresario Dimitri Weismann -- a stand-in for the legendary Flo Ziegfeld -- his name like the show's title illustrating Sondheim's penchant for symbolic word play -- instead of wringing his hands because his delapidated theater is being demolished, throws a reunion party for the "Weismann Girls" who descended the theater's staircase in opulent costumes and danced up a storm in the Follies revues from 1918 to 1941.
The first part of this at once tearful and joyously nostalgic party gives each of the guests a chance to step into the limelight for a musical reminiscence. The only real plot built into this conceit comes from two 1941 Follies girls, Sally and Phyllis and their husbands Buddy and Ben for whom the return to the theater exacerbates the marital problems that began thirty years ago when Ben left Sally for Phyllis, and Sally married the adoring Buddy.
Follies is not an easy show to produce. The combination of song and dance filled reunion and marital drama, not to mention a second act vaudevillian fantasia about each of the unhappy wives' and husbands' "Follies" calls for a savvy director and a large cast of performers who must excel as singers, dancers and actors. The characters of the older actors and their younger memory-born selves must merge almost cinematically, without fadeouts or clearly defined scene changes. Though the set can be relatively simple, the costumes and choreography require a budget larger than most small organizations can afford to do justice to the sequences that evoke the 1918 to 1941 era of dazzling chorus girls and songsmiths who turned out song after great song. Those show-biz sequences are the deceptively bright wrapping paper for William Goldman's dark book in which the two unhappily married couples at the otherwise plotless show's center reflect an America (1971) which is filled with a sense of regret for its optimistic and settled younger days.
Small wonder that full-bodied Follies productions are rare enough for any major revival to be a destination for musical theater fans generally and Sondheim enthusiasts in particular. I was therefore not surprised to see many New Yorkers (including critics) at last Sunday's opening. Some of these Sondheimians have seen every major Follies production somce its multi-Tony Award winning 1971 Broadway premiere and to the Roundabout Theater Company's Great White Way revival in 2001.
It would be too bad if some of these Follies aficionados allowed themselves to fall into the same trap as the show's Sally, Buddy, Phyllis and Ben who regret the perfect lives they once thought was theirs but fail to see that their laments about lost dreams keep them from moving forward. So take my advice. Ignore any comparisons. Boyd, having staged Company as well as A Little Night Music is quite a Sondheim aficionado herself. This third Sondheim venture is her best and most elaborate yet. It's got enough star power and and glitz to make you forget that you are in a high school auditorium.
The Barrington Stage production uses the same Goldman text as the Roundabout revival (there are some five variations with none ever dubbed as the official one) and has re-arranged some of the original material. Most importantly, Boyd and her team, without turning the reconciliations into a sugar-coated happy ending, have offset the sadness of irretrievably lost innocence and youth with the overall spirit of survival summed up in Carlotta Campion's (Donna McKechnie) terrific "I'm Still Here."
 Kim Crosby as Sally singing the torch-y "Losing My Mind." (Photo: Kevin Sprague) |
 Leslie Denniston as Phyllis singing "Ah, But Underneath!"
(Photo: Kevin Sprague) |
Of course, the super stars of this or any other version of this complex show are Stephen Sondheim's music and the lyrics that characterize and tell complete little stories. It would be your folly to miss this Follies.
LINKS TO REVIEWS OF SHOWS MENTIONED
A Little Night Music
Company
The 25th Putnam County Spelling Bee
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FOLLIES
Book by James Goldman Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim Director: Julianne Boyd Choreographer: Lara Teeter Musical Director Darren Cohen Cast (in order of appearance): Gordon Stanley (Dimitri 'Roscoe' Weismann), Kim Crosby (Sally), Diane J. Findlay (Stella Deems), Marvin Einhorn (Sam Deems), Diane Houghton (Hattie Walker), Joy Franz (Solange La Fitte), Marni Nixon (Heidi Schiller), Natalie Mosco (Emily Whitman), David Young (Theodore Whitman), Donna McKechnie (Carlotta Campion), Leslie Denniston (Phyllis Rogers Stone)), Jeff McCarthy (Ben Stone), Lara Teeter (Buddy Plummer), Nili Bassman (Young Phyllis), Ellie Molinelli (Young Sally), Rose O'Hara (Young Carlotta), Eric Ulloa ( (Young Ben), John Patrick (Young Buddy), Jason Johnson (Kevin), Michelle Dyer (Young Heidi), Bettina Tyler-Lewis ("Margie"), Rose O'Hara ("Sally") Rose O'Hara, Bettina Tyler-Lewis, Michelle Dyer also play ladies and gentlemen of the ensemble along with Steve Parmeter, Jason Johnson and Carissa Lopez. Set Design: Michael Anania Costume Design: Alejo Vietti Lighting Designer: Scott Pinkney & D. Benjamin Courtney Sound Design: Randy Hansen Orchestra: Darren Cohen-piano/conductor; Barian Usifer-assistant musical director/keyboards; Stephanie Long-Woodwinds; Jeff Stevens-Trumpet; Dave Wampler-Trombone; Dennis Arcano-Percussion; Miriam Shapiro-Violin; Jenny Hersch-Bass Barrington Stage Company, Consolati Performing Arts Center, Sheffield, MA (413/528-8888) www.barringtonstageco.org/ June 23 through July 16, 2005, opening June 26 Performances are Tuesdays at 7pm, Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm, Friday at 2 & 8pm, Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 5pm, with a special Wednesday matinee July 13 at 2pm. Tickets: $15-$52 Reviewed by Elyse Sommer based on June 26th press opening. |
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Musical Numbers
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Act One
Prologue/Overture/CompanyBeautiful Girls/Dimitri & Company Don't Look at Me/Sally & Ben Waiting for the Girls Upstairs/Buddy, Ben, Phyllis, Sally, Young Buddy, Young Ben, Young Phyllis, Young Sally Rain on the Roof/Emily & Theodore Ah, Paris!/Solange Broadway Baby/Hattie The Road You Didn't Take/Ben Danse d'Amour/ Emily, Theodore, Young Emily, Young Theodore In Buddy's Eyes/Sally Who's That Woman?Stella & Ladies I'm Still Here/Carlotta Too Many Mornings/Ben & Sally |
Act Two
The Right Girl/Buddy One More Kiss/Heidi & Young Heidi Could I Leave You?/Phyllis THE FOLLIES The Folly of Love . . . Loveland/Company The Folly of Youth . . . You're Gonna Love Tomorrow/Young Phyllis & Young Ben . . . Love Will See Us Through/Young Sally & Young Buddy Buddy's Folly The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues/Buddy, Margie, Sally Sally's Folly . . . Losing My Mind/Sally Phyllis's Folly . . . Ah, But Underneath/Phyllis & Male Ensemble Ben's Folly . . . Live, Laugh, Love/Ben & Female Ensemble |
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