FOLLIES questions- Page 5

[LadyRosecoe]

Posted: 6/5/08 at 12:41am

I like to think that she doesn't even have a clue about how he pulls himself away from her. Perhaps his not remembering her or discarding her rather quickly has something to do with a past incident when she was young. Maybe she was crazy then!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/19/08 at 9:07pm

So Buddy introduced Ben to Phyllis through Sally. Do we presume that Ben was carrying on with Sally even before he got with Phyllis? Was he just screwing Sally behind Buddy's back because it was easy?

I always imagine that when Young Sally is crying, "I want a reason!" that that's the last time he saw her.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/19/08 at 10:57pm

Yeah. Whenever I cry that it tends to be the last time I see them.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/19/08 at 11:01pm

Pal. Pal Joey! I want a reason. Look at me! Dammit, you turn around and look at me!

[LadyRosecoe]

Posted: 6/19/08 at 11:02pm

I feel like he wasn't interested in what Phyllis had to offer and so he spotted Sally on those double-dates and they went for it.

Would you consider, PRS, the "I'll kill myself, I'll die!" to be said in the same encounter as "I want a reason!" then?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/19/08 at 11:09pm

Maybe? The problem with the Follies book is that whenever you tie up one loose end, another unravels. In my nerdiest moments, I try to work out a linear backstory, but it ain't easy. We do learn from the awful London book that Phyllis is from Indiana.

Something I love about the pre-Loveland confrontation is how the older characters start getting lost in time and saying responding with things their younger counterparts should be saying (Sally's, "We can go to my place. Phyll won't be there" and Phyllis's "I want a baby, Ben."

[LadyRosecoe]

Posted: 6/19/08 at 11:28pm

The fact that Phyllis is so calm as she says that line is chilling because you know that it's out of place, even though it still stands true. Quite ghostly, more than when Sally has her bit because she's cracked enough that it ain't too surprising with her.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/19/08 at 11:43pm

Off the subject, but was Who's That Woman in the Follies every year or something? The disparity of age in the women who do that number (especially in the more recent productions) always throws me.

[LadyRosecoe]

Posted: 6/19/08 at 11:45pm

I think it was the grand showcase number that was annually awaited and included new members each year as old ones left. Perhaps the best of the promising new faces made it in? Christine Crane was obviously not in it, she didn't like Phyllis. Perhaps she was jealous of her inclusion in such things and probably her talent as well. She may have been "drab," but Phyllis has a trick up her sleeve for everything.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/25/08 at 11:37pm

I didn't have an actual question at the moment, but I'm always up for a little Follies-love.

[LadyRosecoe]

Posted: 7/26/08 at 12:30am

This thread is old enough that both Kringas and C is for Company were still around with us. What happened to us Phyll?! Where did you go?

AND a weirder thought has struck me: it's been nearly a year and a half since Follies. Can you believe how time flies whilst our love remains

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/26/08 at 12:35am

I can still hear the two of you giggling, wriggling out of your tights, chattering and clattering down all of those flights.

[Amalia Balash]

Posted: 7/26/08 at 1:08pm

I loved songs from Follies from the first time I heard them in ?Side by Side by Sondheim. Loved the OCR of Follies, even in its sadly butchered state. HATED the London book and that that travesty was the only full production I've ever been able to attend. Good performers and songs can only do so much sometimes.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/28/08 at 4:25pm

That London book is so so so so bad!

[LadyRosecoe]

Posted: 7/28/08 at 5:43pm

Yet I was unaware of all the praise it got at the time:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEED7173FF930A15754C0A961948260

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/28/08 at 5:51pm

Yeah, people really ate up that production. Good for them, I guess, but it's just not Follies.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/28/08 at 6:22pm

Sondheim has said, famously, "I used to stand in the back of the Winter Garden during the original production, thinking, 'I love this. Why do they all hate this?' And then I went to London and stood at the back of the house during the London production and thought, "I hate this. Why do they all love it?'"

[Amalia Balash]

Posted: 7/28/08 at 7:03pm

How long did the 1987 London travesty actually end up running? I don't know whether they really thought making it more "upbeat" would attract American tourists who hadn't wanted to see the original Broadway version but in the long run I don't think ended up pleasing anyone. It sure didn't end up with the legs so many other Mackintosh productions of that era had. I hated what they did to Phyllis's character and Ben's closing number made me cringe. Did the 2002 London revival use the same book?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/28/08 at 7:23pm

The 2002 London Revival - was that the really small scale one with Claire Moore? If it is, they used the original 1971 book. If it's a different one, then I'm not sure.

The original book is still the best. The changes made for the current available version is only serve to make the show more miserable and unpleasant.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/29/08 at 6:01am

"How long did the 1987 London travesty actually end up running?"

Not much longer than the Broadway original - about 18 months.

"Did the 2002 London revival use the same book?"

There was no 2002 London revival. There was a type of concert performance at the Royal Festival Hall, as there was at the Palladium in early 2007. The "small scale" room-above-the-pub London production with Claire Moore was late 2006 and somewhat disappointing. The audience were supposed to be the guests at the party but the room wasn't really big enough to pull off the concept.