Follies-San Francisco Playhouse

[JasonC3]

Posted: 7/3/22 at 4:35pm

Previews of this production (running into mid-September) featuring Natascia Diaz as Sally Durant Plummer started on June 30 and many July dates are up on Goldstar.

I'm seeing in late August, but look forward to early reports from anyone catching it this month.

 

 

Updated On: 7/3/22 at 04:35 PM

[Shubert Alley Cat]

Posted: 7/3/22 at 4:37pm

I am visiting SF later this month and will be attending on the 17th.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 7/3/22 at 5:02pm

If I'm reading the website correctly, one actress plays both Stella & Heidi, and one actress plays both Young Phyl and Young Heidi??? Bizzarre! They're doing it with a 21-person cast.

Natascia Diaz feels like such a Phyllis (or Carlotta or Stella), not a Sally.

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 7/3/22 at 7:14pm

I saw the show on July 1st.  I wasn't familiar with Follies, aside from listening to the Follies revival recording on Amazon Music.  It was such a complex story of love...lost love..etc.  The main characters of Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy express such longing and angst in their complicated group.  Aside from wanting to see Follies for the first time, I wanted to meet Natascia Diaz for the first time.  Initially, I was set to see her in "Our Town" in Washington, D.C. But her plans changed,  She got the role of Sally.  So, after D.C., I made plans to see Follies in SF.  The San Francisco Playhouse is located about a block away from Union Square in downtown San Francisco.  Natascia was quite lovely in her role of Sally.  I had no idea she could tap dance.   (There is an extended tap dance segment in the show.)  Towards the end, I felt sorry for Sally.  She was willing to leave Buddy to get married with Ben....or so she (naively) hoped.  After the show, I met her in the lobby.  She reminded me that she first came across me on Broadway World.   I had forgotten about that.  Natascia was surprised that I got her a 1971 Follies Broadway playbill.  She is quite a talented lady.  

Updated On: 7/29/22 at 07:14 PM

[UncleCharlie]

Posted: 7/3/22 at 9:02pm

I've seen a number of shows there over the last 7 or 8 years. For a small regional company, they tackle some complex shows and always put out a quality product. I don't expect Follies to be any different. Looking forward to seeing it there later this summer.

[justoldbill]

Posted: 7/6/22 at 3:19pm

Some double-casting is not out of the ordinary.  When Victoria Mallory (Young Heidi) left the original company, Marti Rolph (Young Sally) took over the role of Young Heidi as well, repeating it in St. Louis and Los Angeles.  There was enough time in the course of the evening to make the change.  I saw Miss Rolph doing both roles and I have a recording from L.A. of her doing both roles (wonderfully).

[bear88]

Posted: 7/9/22 at 5:20pm

Both of today’s shows are sold out, as is Sunday’s and Tuesday’s, per the San Francisco Playhouse website. Not many tickets left for Thursday. (Discount tickets are still available for tonight’s show and Tuesday’s on TodayTix.) 

I guess this is one I’ll have to plan ahead to see this summer. It runs through Sept. 10. 

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 7/20/22 at 10:23pm

https://vimeo.com/731221069  A video of this production.

[bear88]

Posted: 7/29/22 at 12:28am

bear88 said: "Both of today’s shows are sold out, as is Sunday’s and Tuesday’s, per the San Francisco Playhouse website. Not many tickets left for Thursday. (Discount tickets are still available for tonight’s show and Tuesday’s on TodayTix.)

I guess this is one I’ll have to plan ahead to see this summer. It runs through Sept. 10."

I should have realized. There have been a number of Covid outbreaks among the 21-member cast (plus 7 people in the orchestra). All of that delayed the opening until July 14. I have tickets to see it Saturday night. We’ll see what happens. (They’re trying to be safe, requiring proof of vaccination and masks for audience members, but it’s obviously been tough for the performers.)

 

[bear88]

Posted: 8/2/22 at 3:45am

The San Francisco Playhouse production of Follies was supposed to happen two years ago, then was delayed again due to COVID-19 outbreaks among the cast. But I finally got to see the show Saturday night, and it was worth the wait.

While I know the show reasonably well from cast recordings and various clips I've run across, this is the first time I have seen it in person. The San Francisco Playhouse is a regional company that does a good job with its musicals, but this is real bear of a show to do. The degree of difficulty is quite high, and this is apparently the first time there has been a production of Follies in San Francisco.

The cast of 21 does fine work. Natascia Diaz, who is normally not on the West Coast, makes for a wonderful Sally Durant Plummer, emphasizing her sadness and desperation and nailing her big solos. Veteran Bay Area actress Maureen McVerry plays Phyllis Rogers Stone, and acts the part with the right mixture of venom and hurt. Both of the leading men acquit themselves nicely. Anthony Rollins-Mullens has a powerful voice and is a terrific Buddy, especially in "The Right Girl." Veteran actor Chris Vettel does well as Benjamin Stone, most notably in the "Loveland" finale. I would be remiss if I didn't mention Broadway veteran Jill Slyter, who now works as a hospice nurse according to the program, and is wonderful as Solange; Chloe Wintersteen, a recent Stanford University graduate whose enthusiasm and skill as an understudy getting a chance to play Young Sally was infectious; and Danielle Cheiken, who doubles as Young Phyllis and Young Heidi, serves as the dance captain, and whose skills are shown off in "The Story of Lucy and Jessie."

 The San Francisco Playhouse is situated in a hotel in the Union Square area. It features not many seats (just nine rows in the orchestra) but a pretty large stage. It has a rotating stage that's a discount version of the one at Lincoln Center's Beaumont Theater. I ended up in the second row. The only disadvantage is that it's almost too close given the many things going on. I found myself turning my head to try to catch everything, and I'm sure I missed a few moments anyway. But what one loses occasionally in perspective is made up for in intimacy.

Follies is, of course, a rather brutal show, full of pain and cynicism and dashed hopes and misguided nostalgia. And when you're that close, you feel it all. I think I underestimated the show's in-person impact, especially as emotions get hotter and characters start falling apart. In the meantime, director Bill English does a wonderful job staging a lot of the more difficult group numbers. "Who's That Woman" is a triumph. I really didn't expect the choreography by Nicole Helfer to be that crisp given its complexity. There's so much happening in that dance, and the performers not only tap danced the hell out of it, they acted it too.

The hybrid nature of the show - the story of the four main characters alongside the individual songs by a number of minor characters - sometimes causes it to lose a little momentum. But when the "throwaway" songs are as good as the ones Sondheim wrote, it's easy to be forgiving. English hasn't quite solved the problem of where to end the first act in what was originally a one-act musical. [He ended with "I'm Still Here.”] While it felt like an odd place to stop, the advantage is that it really emphasizes the main story of the two miserable couples in the second act. And Diaz's Sally, deluded though she might be, did a wonderful job breaking my heart. In a play, Sally might not be a terribly sympathetic character, and one can argue that she's not really worse off at the end of the show than at the beginning.

But in this musical, Diaz's poignant performance left me feeling like Sally is one of the most tragic characters in musical theater history. It's not that the other lead characters are that much better off. But they leave with a little hope, or resignation, even if they're just kidding themselves. Sally leaves with nothing.

The SF Playhouse's production of Follies runs through Sept. 10. As I can attest, good seats are available. Who knows when, or if, this musical will be back again?

Updated On: 8/2/22 at 03:45 AM

[JBroadway]

Posted: 8/2/22 at 8:48am

Thanks for the thorough write up! 

What happened with Ryan Drummond? Wasn’t he supposed to play Buddy? 

[bear88]

Posted: 8/2/22 at 10:06am

I’m not sure. He is a regular at the San Francisco Playhouse (played Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, Jules in Sunday In the Park With George and more) and was originally announced to play Buddy. He’s on Twitter, couldn’t say why the change was made.

Updated On: 8/2/22 at 10:06 AM

[bear88]

Posted: 8/11/22 at 4:10am

I hadn't planned to see Follies again, so soon, but I've been stuck in jury duty limbo and my other theater option didn't work out Wednesday night. So back into Loveland I went.

First difference: The audience. It was an enthusiastic group compared to the one at the show 11 days ago. There was applause when "Broadway Baby" started, a huge roar for the terrific "Who's That Woman" performance, and more for a lot of the familiar or especially well-performed songs. Unlike the first show, there was a big standing ovation at the end.

My seats were different, Row E center instead of the second row. and it changed my perspective to a surprising degree. It was less painful eavesdropping on misery than a more conventional, but still close-up, view of the musical. This helps during some of the big dance routines and during the more chaotic parts of the second act, which are easier to track. No complaints either way. There's not a bad seat.

Oh, yes. Live theater. It's never exactly the same. Line readings were slightly different, a couple of vocal performances were stronger.

A few extra notes that I didn't mention the last time, or noticed Wednesday night, or are just choosing to mention again:

-- Lucinda Hitchcock Cone gives the fantastic performance of "Broadway Baby" that the audience was anticipating. It's such a fun and lived-in rendition of a classic song.

-- I think I appreciated Maureen McVerry more as Phyllis Rogers Stone the second time. She gives such a wry, self-aware performance that turns the audience into her co-conspirator. And it's such a wonderfully written role.

-- I wrote it before, I'm writing it again. Anthony Rollins-Mullens, as Buddy, is so very good in "The Right Girl," a song I normally don't think of as a Follies highlight. His vocals are strong, and his palpable self-loathing is even better. His follies song builds off that. 

-- I caught little bits of choreography and I missed the first time. The ensemble has a lot to do in this show, and they add little touches while playing an essential role haunting the place or playing younger versions of the main characters. Special mention, because they're hilarious, to M. Javi Harnly and Anthony Maglio as the dancers in Solange's "Ah, Paris" number. (Jill Slyter, as I mentioned above, is a terrific Solange.) 

-- The chaotic argument sequence with the young and old incarnations of the couples just before the Loveland sequence is brilliantly staged by Bill English. it's easy to track even if you can't make out every argument that's taking place simultaneously. And that's the point.

-- Natascia Diaz is a very good Sally Durant Plummer. See my previous "review" above.

My apologies for rambling. I understand that Follies isn't for everyone, and people get very particular about revivals of beloved shows, but this is a fine production by a regional company that has a history of doing a great job on musical revivals. Of the ones I've seen, it ranks up with the San Francisco Playhouse's revival of Sunday in the Park With George a few years ago.

[JasonC3]

Posted: 8/11/22 at 8:28am

I'm planning on seeing this twice and already have orchestra center booked for one performance.  Any value in seeing it from the mezzanine for a broader perspective?  I know the theatre is intimate so I was thinking of pulling back for my second viewing.

Updated On: 8/11/22 at 08:28 AM

[barneyschreibercpa2]

Posted: 8/11/22 at 2:38pm

The front row mezzanine have the best seats for this show, usually reserved for season subscribers. The broad perspective is so worth it! I saw it from here and it instantly became one of my favorite Sondheim productions that I’ve seen.
 

[bear88]

Posted: 8/12/22 at 12:41am

The front rows of the mezzanine are fine seats. The "balcony" seats are the next two rows - there are only four rows on the second level - but are more problematic but not terrible either unless your view is partially obstructed. That's not an issue in the first two rows. The balcony used to be where I got tickets because I was even cheaper then, I guess, and could sometimes move around as needed.

I'm sure the big group songs/dances would look impressive from there.

[bear88]

Posted: 9/10/22 at 3:24am

Caught the revival one last time on Friday night before a nearly packed house. Follies closes after two final performances on Saturday. No major changes, aside from Natascia Diaz taking her rendition of "Losing My Mind" to another level. I'm sure other actors playing Sally have slowed the pace of the last, "You said you loved me, or were you just being kind" - and all you experts on the musical can let me know. But it sure was effective.

[MarkBearSF]

Posted: 9/11/22 at 1:17pm

We caught it yesterday (Saturday) matinee.

I was astonished. A wonderful production done without compromises. (And they even included Bolero d'Amour!) 

Well done, SF Playhouse!

[NYfanfromCA]

Posted: 9/11/22 at 6:19pm

Saw this at the closing show yesterday, 9/10 matinee, too.  We had tickets rescheduled for 2020, so this was long overdue.  This was our first Follies experience.  Great production, wonderful cast!  We have never been disappointed with the SF Playhouse.  We sat in E center, and I definitely prefer those seats to C center.