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#26

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/21/11 at 5:18pm

henrikegerman is right (as always) that "Follies" was preceded by shows that were grittier and more acidic, but they didn't usually couch their acid in Irving Berlin-type songs. "Follies" was heavily publicized as part of the nostalgia backlash against rock musicals that included "No, No, Nanette." The perception was that it was an old-fashioned show where one was safe from characters singing about adultery.

But I think PalJoey's more specific point was about Alexis Smith. She seemed the very epitome of sophisticated restraint, so that when she sang:

"Shall I bury my rage
With a boy half my age
In the grass?
Bet your ass!
But I've done that already..."

...it was as if Jackie Kennedy had scratched her twat at a White House reception.

I had seen "Hair" and had snuck into the movies to see "Midnight Cowboy." Neither shocked me as much as Alexis Smith in that moment.

(And then six years later when David Kernan sang it, it was shocking all over again for a different reason.)

Updated On: 10/21/11 at 05:18 PM

#27

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/21/11 at 10:24pm

I second sing dance love's mention of Dee Hoty. She gets the steely, acerbic quality of Smith's rendition but also conveys the underlying pain in the number. Plus, she has a beautiful voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUKuJ5N-luU

For me, it's a toss up between Hoty and Donna Murphy.

Updated On: 10/21/11 at 10:24 PM

#28

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/24/11 at 10:38pm

Gaveston, thanks, I guess.

However, the number of songs, and even whole shows, about adultery, even in good old fashioned nostalgic American as Apple Pie musical theater are too many to count.

I'll just mention one.

Vera Simpson, a classy married woman, in 1940, 31 years before Follies sang, about her lover:

I couldn't sleep
And wouldn't sleep
Until I could sleep
Where I shouldn't sleep

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered am I.

Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart Pal Joey

If you and Pal Joey were genuinely shocked by Alexis Smith, I certainly believe you. But I find it hard to believe that smack dab in the middle of the sexual revolution an audience that several years earlier had been exposed to plays like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Homecoming, and who had a season earlier first heard Marta tell Bobby that you could classify New Yorkers based on the relative tightness of their assholes, and in a year when the best musical winner, Two Gentlemen of Verona, had a song with a refrain that went "F*CK ****awuckawucka Cock cockawockawocka Puss pussawussawussa F*CK ****awuckawucka Wow!", etc., etc., etc., would have been all that shocked by the revelation that Alexis Smith's Phyllis had flings with young men, or that she would punctuate her confession with "bet your ass!" Even a suburban middle class audience that was by then very comfortable with Jackie Susann.


Updated On: 10/25/11 at 10:38 PM

#31

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/25/11 at 2:37am

Did someone seriously ask if Julie Andrews could still sing Phyllis?

Don't knock a Dame when she's down.
"Oh look at the time, three more intelligent plays just closed and THE ADDAMS FAMILY made another million dollars" -Jackie Hoffman, Broadway.com Audience Awards
#32

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/25/11 at 5:55am

But, henrikegerman, musical theater was largely seen as a safe alternative to Albee and Pinter. And "Hair" and "Two Gentleman" wore their rebellion on their sleeves, so while I admit I was surprised the first time I heard "Sodomy", the surprise was brief and superficial.

You bring up an excellent example in "Pal Joey" (the show, not the poster), but isn't it the exception that proves the rule? It was never a great popular hit (though, yes, I realize it was somewhat more successful in revival) and, IIRC, was seen as controversial in each of its Broadway repetitions. Lyrics such as "long for the trousers that cling to him" were cleaned up in pop versions of the songs.

So while I readily admit that you are correct that musical theater had dealt with serious themes before "Follies" (hell, the plot of "Cabaret" turns on an abortion), I still argue that the marketing of the show left most of the audience unprepared for Phyllis' (and Smith's) candor in "Could I Leave You?"

But perhaps age is a factor here: I was 17 when I saw "Follies". I'll admit that because of my age, most of my musical theater experience at the time consisted of shows deemed appropriate for TV, high schools and my town's very commercial winter stock house. Of course, the La Mama audience found nothing shocking in "Follies", unless they were surprised that a commercial Broadway musical was so unwilling to express a positive attitude.
#33

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/25/11 at 8:46am

Gaveston, these exchanges between us are always interesting, at least to us, if at a certain point we hit a wall. Age may have been a factor.

I would say, however, that Follies wore it's rebellion (if, in 1971, a mere confession to adultery in the middle of a marriage in obvious trouble, or use of the "ass" word, can even be termed a "rebellion") on its sleeve a little more than you are wont to give it credit for. It was the new Prince/Sondheim show, following up on Company, and was even then seen as the second in a new movement, the "concept" musical.

True, those who understood the particular concept at issue, recognized the theme as nostalgia. But don't forget the poster: the showgirl's statuesque marble face was plainly cracked. This was not branded as a new "No, No Nanette."

It's safe to say a great many went into that theater expecting a little bit of edge, and, if it hadn't been delivered, would have been more than surprised. They would have been highly disappointed.


Updated On: 10/25/11 at 08:46 AM

#34

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/25/11 at 4:14pm

I've never been convinced that the majority of the public understood the crack in the FOLLIES poster. Of course, I didn't take a formal survey, so I could very well be wrong.

I don't disagree with your last post, but I think we might distinguish between "rebellion" and "innovation." Certainly, Prince's shows (even before the Sondheim collaboration) were praised for their innovation, but they still arose out of the culture of what was called The Establishment. After all, this was the man who produced PAJAMA GAME and DAMN YANKEES. Of course, FIDDLER, SHE LOVES ME, et al., also had their innovative elements, but, relatively speaking, Prince's shows were evolving, not revolting.

HAIR and TWO GENTLEMAN (the latter wanting very much to ride the wave of the former) were acts of open revolution by comparison (even if they strike us as rather tame and even naive in retrospect).

And this is probably where we hit that wall, though it is never my intention to stifle your replies. And, yes, I'm sure our conversations are sometimes of interest only to ourselves, but I assume everyone has a scroll bar and and an off button. I use mine for some of the "Which is your favorite of the four shows you've seen?" threads. (Oops. That came out nastier than I meant it. Really.)
#35

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/25/11 at 6:24pm

Greetings from the wall, Gaveston!

Let's recap. "Pal Joey" compared "If I Could Leave You" to something as revolutionary as Hedda Gabler, a jarring strike at the virtue of the Victorian feminine ideal.

On the one hand, I don't see "Follies" as being the kind of show where a contemporary adult edge could have been unexpected, especially to an audience that had already sat through enough of it to get to "Could I Leave You." (whether or not they had noticed the cracked head on the poster girl; and no matter what they had made of it).

Nor do I share your and Pal Joey's view that the lyrics of "Could I Leave You" were some kind of iconoclastic milestone. Rather I see them as being, if not mild, right in line with the Establishment standard circa 1971.

Yes, Hair and Two Gentlemen may have been youth-market musicals, albeit with not insignificant cross-over appeal.

But, if we look at what more mature Americans likely to buy tickets to Follies were up to at the time, nothing in "Could I Leave You" is a marked departure from the zeigeist.

Consider their cultural touchstones - high, middle, and low brow - which included Philip Roth, Mary McCarthy, 007, Playboy, Cosmo, Swinging London, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, The Graduate, The Sterile Cuckoo, Five Easy Pieces, Tell Me That You Love Me Junie Moon, the Jane Fonda of Klute and Barbarella (rather than of Any Wednesday), Little Big Man, M*A*S*H, the Neil Simon of The Last of the Red Hot Lovers (rather than of Star Spangled Girl), the Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward of Rachel, Rachel (rather than of A New Kind of Love), Burt Reynolds, Franco Zeffirelli (and Leonard Whiting's naked ass), Joan Didion, Tuesday Weld, Harold Robbins, Federico Fellini, James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, Germaine Greer, Stanley Kubrick, Truman Capote, Ingmar Bergman, The Last Picture Show, Julie Christie, Warren Beatty, The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, Antonioni, Monica Vitti, John Schlesinger, Mel Brooks, John Updike, Roman Polanski, Jackie Susann, Robert Klein, Midnight Cowboy (as you've mentioned), Harold Pinter, Woody Allen, Diary of a Mad Housewife, The Killing of Sister George, Joseph Heller, Jules Feiffer, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Harold and Maude, Ken Russell, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Edward Albee, Betty Friedan, Norman Mailer, Lenny Bruce, The Me Nobody Knows, Robert Altman, Joan Rivers, Mort Sahl, Ira Levin, the Harold Prince of Cabaret (rather than Pajama Game), the Stephen Sondheim of Company (rather than Gypsy, or even Forum with it's constant jokes about infidelity and hookers which, after all, were as old as it's source - Plautus). And, of course, Warhol.

Pretty Heady Stuff. And this was not the fringe. This was, with some exceptions perhaps, the mainstream. "Rebels?" Maybe, but they were still, unquestionably, the front guard of literature and the performing arts. The Establishment.

The Times Were A Changin' and it wasn't just in hippie shows. The expected innovation of a Prince/Sondheim show, especially after Company, could not be expected to be "safe" from the tempo just about ever major player over 35 - with the exception of people like Pat Boone and Lawrence Welk - were marching to.



Updated On: 10/30/11 at 06:24 PM

#36

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/25/11 at 6:45pm

henrik, I'm willing to stipulate that perhaps the truth was simply that *I* (well, joey and I) were shocked by that moment. I've already acknowledged that my age may have been a factor.

But reread William Goldman's THE SEASON, written four years before. He clearly documents the culture war of the 1960s as it was waged on Broadway. And I still say that FOLLIES seemed to change sides in that war somewhere mid-show--and "Could I Leave You?" is as good a place as any to mark the defection.

Your comparisons to avant-garde theater and counterculture films are all accurate. But I think a fairer comparison in terms of the expectations of commercial Broadway musical audiences is TV, with all its standards and practices. ALL IN THE FAMILY premiered a couple of months before FOLLIES opened and was not yet a huge hit. SOAP was yet to come.

At the risk of starting another quarrel, I'll point out that BOYS IN THE BAND opened off-Broadway in 1968 and was made into a film in 1970. Nonetheless, the character of Paul and his story were still considered controversial when A CHORUS LINE opened five years later. Not so troubling that the show wasn't a monster hit, obviously, but the presentation of subject matter "downtown" or at the cinema didn't instantly prepare musical theater audiences to see the same issues in song and dance. It did help to prepare them, of course, but the process wasn't instantaneous.

#37

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/25/11 at 8:03pm

Gaveston, my point, perhaps in this respect somewhat in agreement with Goldman's, is that a new sense of liberation was constantly and ubiquitously challenging recent norms ("culture wars" seems a phrase more pertinent to post-Farwell America than to pre-). Everyone had a clear sense that things were rapidly opening up. The difference between the early 60s and the early 70s in terms of free expression is incalculable. Everyone was turning on.... (by the way I'm actually a few years younger than you are, and didn't see the original company of Follies - "so what is he going on about?" - but that's how it seemed to me).

I don't recall Paul or A Chorus Line inspiring much controversy. Although I trust you implicitly that there was some buzz to that effect (people say all sorts of things, especially when it comes to the popular stage). Nor do I have a sense that Duane (Lee Roy Reams) or the singing dancing comic gay bar setting of the "Alive" number in Applause, a few seasons earlier, was the least bit controversial (hell they even included it when Bacall did the show for tv).

I'd like to reread "The Season." For one thing, I'm curious if I'd find Goldman's "Homosexuals" chapter as revoltingly homophobic as I remember it being.

Updated On: 10/25/11 at 08:03 PM

#38

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/25/11 at 8:53pm

I'm actually a few years younger than you are, and didn't see the original company of Follies

Now you tell us.


Let's recap....

Oh, dear god. Must we?

Updated On: 10/25/11 at 08:53 PM

#39

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/26/11 at 5:13pm

Sign me up for a henrikegerman recap every time! I always learn (or am reminded of) something I hadn't thought about before.

henrik, as I recall it the 1960s was a culture war many years before Falwell coined the term. (In fact, what Falwell was really talking about was using culture to mislead people on political issues.) Like all wars, there were combat zones and there were places of relative stability. As I said, TV and musical theater were not the combat zones.

Yes, audiences accepted Duane in APPLAUSE, though there were some dropped jaws. (As it happens, I saw APPLAUSE in the evening after a matinee of FOLLIES, the day after my first Broadway show, COMPANY. I was on a high school trip.) But I'm sure you know comic relief characters get away with all sorts of things that aren't expected from serious characters, the laughter softening the blow.

And it may be hard to believe, but I'm not sure how much of the audience actually realized Margo was in a gay bar. I'm not sure *I* knew that; I do know the setting surprised me when I saw the show in revival a few years ago. If I realized where she was in 1971, I had forgotten it (which seems unlikely). Certainly the homoerotic context was apparent, but again comic and basically harmless. (But this paragraph could be taken as an argument for my personal naivete and proof that "Could I?" was only shocking to me.)

As for Goldman, I'm trying to avoid my copy of THE SEASON. If I touch it, I end up reading it cover to cover and I don't have time. Yes, his attitude toward gay artists is as you remember: and he's a liberal! But he's stuck in a 1950's belief that homos are exotic creatures who can't possibly understand "normal" people; his argument is that we should be allowed to write what we know: gay characters and themes. His thinking on the subject is very superficial: he never considers the ramifications of insisting that writers only write characters exactly like themselves.

(ETA much had changed by 1975. See ALL IN THE FAMILY and its spin-offs. My memory is that the Paul character was seen as "daring" when A CHORUS LINE opened that year, but "controversial" would be too strong a word. Obviously, ACL was a hit with all demographics or it couldn't have run as long as it did.)

Updated On: 10/26/11 at 05:13 PM

#40

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/26/11 at 11:03pm

I just wanted to chime in and say that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your discussion, Gaveston and Henrik. Your differing perspectives are fascinating.

Though, I do think that this girl sums up the reason that so many versions of this song fall flat (at about 2:50).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeEHRCx61DQ
#41

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/26/11 at 11:07pm

My problem with Maxwell's was that she was too angry. Less is more.
#44

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/26/11 at 11:29pm

If she is kidding then I dig her sense of humor...if not someone needs to euthanize her.
"A wonky eye, you've got my friend."
#45

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/27/11 at 12:36pm

agreed+100 Almira...i saw Ms Alexis Smith in the original production...it is HER SONG!...she won a Tony that year for her peformance of this song...it stopped the show!
#46

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/27/11 at 1:12pm

Goldman's attitude toward "homosexuals" is sick making but I am very glad no one has yet "cleaned up" The Season. That attitude was as much a part of Broadway (and the world) as ticket services and theater party ladies and it needs to be documented.
#49

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/27/11 at 4:25pm

Thanks for the link, TracyLord. Oh, the kids these days and their irony! LOL
#50

Could I Leave You? Question

Posted: 10/28/11 at 10:22am

Gaveston, to change gears, and head off the wall a bit, I knew I was burying myself with the Duane example (opening up your lead into the comic queen argument), but similar "safe house" spin might hold true of Paul.

While the funny Guy Friday who (explicitly or implicitly) is "that way" may be as old as the hills, the same might well be said of the sympathetic but melancholy gay outsider with a bit of a sad sexual awakening (if that's a mischaracterization of Paul, that's how I recall him as a 15 year old in the first row of the mezanine at the Shubert (no, not in San Francisco, Adisson) in Chicago. These types are still around today (thank goodness), but thankfully, not exclusively so.

And don't get me wrong, I give Goldman credit for a lot of what he has to say in the "Homosexuals" chapter, some of which might have seemed semi-enlightened at the time. And, Joekv, I agree entirely that his book, in so many ways a fine one, should never be sanitized. But some of the **** he says in that piece is vile. Notably (if I understood him), his accusations that gay writers at the time had a deepseated loathing for straight love and sex that made their marriages on fire works toxic and false (works like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). Clearly, he would not have said the same about Strindberg, O'Neil, and Schnitzler. On a lighter but equally telling note, he criticizing Newsweek (which he saw as more gay-friendly than Time), for quoting a known gay celebrity that it wasn't effeminate for men to wear jewelery (as if the opinion of the star, whom he didn't identify, could not have been considered "objective" given that he was "homosexual." WTF?)

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