FOLLIES performed with no intermission tonight!
FOLLIES performed with no intermission tonight!
#1FOLLIES performed with no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 1:04am
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/allthatchat/d.php?id=2004004
holy crap....
I wonder if they'll keep it this way?
Updated On: 8/24/11 at 01:04 AM
Gaveston2
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/11
#2FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 1:08amI've seen it done both ways and IMO there is no appropriate place to take an intermission break. Better to do without one.
#2FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 1:10amInteresting. In general I prefer shows to have an intermission, but it's nice to know that they're trying it as a one act again and actually taking advantage of the preview performances.
#3FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 1:10am
Where's a like button when you need it?
I'm so pleased to see a show using its preview period to actually fix problems and try new things. Taking an intermission after "Too Many Mornings" has always annoyed me. Hope it stays this way.
"Broadway...I'll lick you yet!"
Updated On: 8/24/11 at 01:10 AM
#4FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 1:10amWoah definitely not expecting that, but after reading what the folks on ATC had to say, it does sound like a good thing. Two hours and 15 minutes is a long time for no intermission, but it sounds like it works for this show.
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
Gaveston2
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/11
#5FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 1:16am
I think the steady build to Loveland (without a break) DOES work for this show.
But I also think they never wrote viable Act I ending. Making an intermission work would require rethinking the show.
#6FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 1:17amDoes anyone know how it plays without the intermission? I only have the Roundabout script. Do they they just skip the entr'acte and pick up with the dialogue between Sally and Ben immediately following the song?
#7FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 1:23amYes, after the applause, it goes right into Ben's line - "Sally, I want you."
#8FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 2:01amI was there tonight, and having also seen the D.C. production, I have to say that it works much better without the intermission. There were a lot of blue-hairs kvetching about it, but the intermission really just messes with the flow of the show.
chewy5000
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/1/09
#9FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 4:13am
Two hours and 15 minutes is a long time for no intermission
You obviously never saw Avatar.
#10FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 7:42am
...or one of the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings movies.
Good for them! The intermission kills the motor that makes Follies unique: the unrelenting movement toward the boiling point when it explodes into Loveland.
#11FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 7:54am
I heard an argument and although I am not completely convinced I still think it's worth mentioning: the thought is that sitting in a theatre for 2 hours or whatever is more tiring than a cinema because you have to pay more attention than in the cinema.
I wouldn't have thought just attention (if at all) but also the seats could be smaller and less comfortable in theatres, and maybe there is a certain fatigue element of having to sit further away and try and view the action from a distance or whatever.
Or maybe we've just been socialised this way.
I don't know, I do find it interesting that people can't seem to sit as comfortably for as long in theatres compared to cinemas...including myself.
Will be so interesting to see the development of this change though...it must have been a long time ago when FOLLIES was last performed without an intermission.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
Updated On: 8/24/11 at 07:54 AM
#12FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 8:33amLOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS! I can't wait to see it next month EVEN MORE!
Tigger
Stand-by Joined: 3/18/05
#13FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 8:58amI had never seen the show until last week at a preview and though I absolutely adored it, I was puzzled at the choice of interrupting it's flow right after Too Many Mornings with an intermission. The moment that we go into Loveland is still a "coup de theatre" however I would imagine it would be twice as potent had the show run at that point without an intermission.
"Extraordinary how potent cheap music is..." Noel Coward-Private Lives
#14FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 8:59amI'm going to consider this a birthday present to myself.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#15FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 9:28am
Audiences will rise to the occasion if you set the perimeters.
Two hours and 15 minutes isn't that long to sit if you're mentally prepared for it (i.e. if audiences know going in the show is performed with out an intermission).
I hope they keep the change - without the intermission serves the art better.
#16FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 9:33amI've never really understood the whole "there needs to be an intermission in the theatre" mindset. The current #1 movie in America--THE HELP--is 2:20 and people don't seem to be having any trouble sitting through that.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#17FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 9:45am
I think audiences are just conditioned by the tradition of intermission. And of course some like to go get their drinks and candy so they can make a lot of noise in the theatre during the second act.
But if you were to poll those same people, I think they'd probably tell you they'd rather get home earlier than take the 15 minutes to stand around.
If its listed on telecharge and at the box office and on a sign going into the theatre - people will be fine.
#18FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 9:54amA CHORUS LINE was two hours and ten minutes, and it and the audience did just fine....
#19FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 9:56amHow long was Drowsy Chaperone? That was a recent show on Broadway with no intermission.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#20FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 9:59amAbout 1:45.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#21FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 10:06am
"About 1:45."
So pee first and ask questions later.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#22FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 10:09amPrecisely.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#23FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 10:12amSeeing FOLLIES again tonight and I am so thrilled to hear that it is now intermissionless!
#24FOLLIES had no intermission tonight!
Posted: 8/24/11 at 10:18amEnjoy the show tonight, WithoutATrace!
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