FOLLIES: Thoughts...- Page 2

[Kad]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 1:56am

I think you need to look deeper into what the songs in the Loveland sequence actually are saying about the characters.

[justoldbill]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 1:58am

Actually, Ben never really loved Phyllis or Sally (or Carlotta, it seems). Ben is the kind of man Shaw described as consuming without producing. When young, he only thought he cared for Sally (as Buddy's girl, a conquest) until she turned the pressure on. Then he (literally) turned heel and planned his life with the makings of a good trophy-wife ("You'll make a good wife, Phyl"). He's even off-hand about the woman he made love to the very afternoon of the party ("Plain girl, no conquest to brag about"), and doesn't give a second thought to whom he's confessing it (Sally, of all people). And as Phyllis says about having children, "Ben put it off and then it was too late". If the two of them have a life after the reunion, it will be Phyllis' accomplishment. And I think she'll probably accomplish it. Or not.

[Alm]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 4:15am

henrikegerman: "I've always said songs, 10, book 3 for Follies...

I've always found Goldman's book to be shallow and predictable, with the characters coming to full life, only in song. Of course that's not unusual in musical theater, but the disparity between what the Follies characters reveal about themselves, their relationships and conflicts between their scenes and their songs is jarring."

What do you mean by "disparity", if you don't mind me asking?

If you mean that the characters show depths in the songs that they don't in the book scenes, I agree, but I'd argue that that doesn't necessarily reflect badly on the book.

If the book provides characters and situations about which the songwriter is able to write great songs, and moves the show from one song to the next in such a way that the show doesn't become boring, then it's a good book. There's an art to doing that that's not quite the same as any other art. (Which is why great playwrights aren't necessarily great book writers, and great book writers aren't necessarily great playwrights.)

(I'm new here. If this subject has already been done to death, I apologize.)



Updated On: 8/14/11 at 04:15 AM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 7:34am

RippedMan, there are a lot of people who think Brecht works better on the page than in production. And unless he's done very well, it's probably true.

And frankly, Sondheim's commentary is often more psychological while Brecht's is more political. I love both, but everybody doesn't have to agree.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 7:42am

Justoldbill is right that Ben chose Phyllis because he knew she would make the better trophy wife. It was a career move.

Ben doesn't know how to live, laugh or love. But when all else fails, he reaches out to Phyllis. That's a recognition of some sort that, at least, he belongs with her.

And "belonging" can be a type of love. (See "Do You Love Me?" from Fiddler.)

So I don't agree that the future success of the Stones depends on Phyllis alone. If anything, I think she was ready to make a true marriage long ago. It was Ben who held things up and Ben who has to change the most if they are to stay together.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 8:17am

Alm, of course I don't mind, and that is pretty much what I do mean.

I disagree with you that the book of Follies is good because it "provides characters and situations about which the songwriter is able to write great songs, and moves the show from one song to the next in such a way that the show doesn't become boring." The book of Follies does indeed do that. And for a book of a musical to do that is a necessary thing. But I can't agree with you that a libretto doing that alone is sufficient to make it a good libretto. Nor can I agree with you that, a libretto having met those criteria, a show's consequently not being a bore means that the show is a good, let alone a great (if great be your implication), show. I might perhaps call a show that doesn't bore me at least "fair," but that's hardly a reason to call it "good."

All it means is that the show is not boring.

I don't judge a book show's greatness by it merely having a fine score and not being boring. I judge a book show to be perfect when all the elements, chiefly the book and the score, seamlessly balance and resonate to create a narrative and or elucidate a concept. I judge a book show to be great when it comes thrillingly close to accomplishing that.

But I can't judge a book to be even "good" when, although a serviceable platform for an impressive score, it doesn't even come close to matching its score in depth, wit, feeling, and engagement. And I insist that a "good" book do more than merely "provide" characters who are able to come to life in song. Instead, I want those characters, when they are not singing, to be people who interest me. Perhaps not to the degree they will in musical performance. But certainly not merely to a threshold that keeps me from leaving the theater out of utter boredom.

Follies is tough. And highly ambitious. The four principles are at a breaking point. They have greatly disappointed themselves and their spouses. They question whether life, once so full of promise, when "everything was possible and nothing made sense," has become unbearable; whether their futures, on their present course, are unsustainable. The dialogue for a book musical with these kinds of psychological demands needs to rigorously challenge and engage the audience and profoundly resonate with, in Follies' case, the exquisite lyrics of its landmark score.

I know of only one moment in "Follies" where the context and dialogue of the libretto comes close to engaging the audience's imagination on that level (ok, I'll speak for myself: engages my imagination on that level). It is a moment which gives me a hint of the show that could have been. It's the final curtain.

Phyllis, Ben, Buddy and Sally have left the theater. The stage doors close.

Young Ben and Buddy enter below. Young Phyllis and Sally enter from upstairs. The spoken greetings from "Waiting for the Girls Upstairs" are repeated.

Young Sally: Hi.

Young Ben: Girls.

Young Phyllis: Ben?

Young Buddy: Sally.

Curtain.

* * *

I find this moment beautiful, emotionally satisfying, and highly dramatic. We see the principles again when they are young, with so much that could happen. And yet see them as "ghosts." But quite differently than we have before. We see them alone on stage, without their older selves, for the first time.* Something has perhaps, just perhaps, changed. Once again "everything is possible and nothing ma[kes] sense." Which can only make us wonder what will happen to their older counterparts now that the reunion is over. It isn't at all clear what will happen, but the ambiguity - a Sondheim staple perfectly matched in a libretto for a Sondheim show - is palpable.

Truly great book musicals, of the dramatic variety which Follies aspires to be, in which the characters' souls take on similarly challenging, sometimes treacherous, journeys, or are, in any event, rawly exposed to the realities of life - here I would suggest, as examples, Show Boat, Carousel, South Pacific, Fiddler, A Chorus Line, Gypsy, West Side Story, Lost in the Stars, The Fantasticks, Cabaret, Into the Woods - feature, throughout the course of their librettos, many moments that achieve this level of poignancy, and so imaginatively reveal character and elucidate theme through spoken dialogue and set piece semiotics.

All good book musical librettos - be they of the dramatic genre addressed above, or in any other style, whether Bolton and Wodehouse frolics, Hammerstein epics, Brecht vaudevilles, Masteroff romances, etc., etc., etc. - consistently mesh character, action, motive, sentiment, humor and pathos to resonate with and evocatively support their scores.

By these measures, the libretto for Follies falls short of "good."

(as always, the above is merely my personal opinion and in no way demands that anyone agree with me, or is meant to suggest that anyone who doesn't is wrong because I am always right).

* with the exception of their fine double duets in Loveland.












Updated On: 8/15/11 at 08:17 AM

[raker]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 9:20am

I've only seen a college production of Follies. I've always been intrigued by the great mystery of how this beloved show, with legendary music, stars, direction, set design, and costumes flopped. Is it the book? Rapturous Follies-love doesn't seem to extend to the book.

It has occurred to me that the music alone tells a complete dramatic story, with fully drawn characters. Is that the problem? Is the book superflous? Instead of a show in which the music propels the story forward, in Follies a show in which the music tells the story while the book slows down the story?

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 9:30am

Justoldbill is right that Ben chose Phyllis because he knew she would make the better trophy wife. It was a career move.

But Sally also believes that she lost Ben because she wanted him too much, that she was too forward, no? Before the Loveland sequence, doesn't Sally say something to her ghost like, "You had him but you let him up your skirt"?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 10:16am

Henrik--you did all that before coffee? I can't even pronounce "elucidate a concept" before coffee, much less type it.

RippedMan--your inability to "get" Follies really gets at the problems the piece has always had. I don't think it's an age thing: I was 15 when I fell in love with it and proselytized it to everyone I knew, yet my parents and older relatives found it unlikable, like you do. And the majority of audiences were left cold by it. The "cult" that developed around it was a cult of mostly young (-ish) Sondheim devotees.

Posters like ljay and PhyllisRogersStone also fell in love with it when they were young. So it's not age, even though the main characters are all dealing with problems of approaching middle life. And those of us who liked it when we were young, like it even more as we grow older.

It might have more to do with empathy for unlikable characters. You may simply not suffer fools gladly. The rest of us, young and old, empathize with these four people who have made mistakes, acted badly, hurt each other and had to live with disappointment.

Sondheim and Goldman and Prince set out to write a musical about those four people, knowing they would be unlikable: Phyllis loved Ben but became one of the cold, bitchy Upper East Side ladies who lunch. Sally never loved Buddy and married him only because she couldn't get Ben. Buddy was a philandering Willy Loman, and Ben an ambitious and self-centered user of people. They would dare the audience to empathize because they were telling the audience: You are no better than they are.

In the late 1960s when they were writing the show, it was very "in" to be cynical about relationships and think all marriages were shams. Sondheim ended up writing two musicals in a row that made that point. But because of his extraordinary depth as a writer, in both Company and Follies, Sondheim's songs etch out a pain and a level of compassion that soar way beyond the books--way beyond cynicism too.

And then there are the pastiche numbers, which as you say, give a bunch of aging female talent a chance to show off. But if you look closer at those numbers, they all shed light on the main characters and the themes of the show (with the exception of "ah, Paris"). Hal Prince, together with Michael Bennett and the designers, came up with a dazzling physical production that made the reunion party and the decaying theater non-literal and metaphoric. The staging and design were the equal to the score, soaring beyond the story in a way no subsequent production has managed to achieve since. That kind of collaboration may never happen again.

The only one of the collaborators who didn't come up to the level of brilliance was James Goldman, whose book never "soars." That was only made worse by his widow when she authorized changes that just rearranged deck chairs and didn't fix the problems. Great musicals have often had this problem: Arthur Laurents died a bitter man because he hated that his book to West Side was inferior to the contributions of his collaborators. Most of the musicals of the Gershwins and Kern and Rodgers & Hart remain insubstantial stories with great scores, while the few that aspired to be greater never quite worked.

So I think you're "getting" Follies exactly as they dared you to. I love the show more than any other, but after forty years, I'm ready to admit: It's their fault you don't love it more, especially Goldman's.

It not yours.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 12:26pm

Pal Joey, no way! I hit the java very early this morning. That and just seeing Follies last night made me obsessive to get it all down.

[ljay889]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 12:39pm

I agree with PJ, it's not an age thing at all. The OBC and Papermill recordings were my introduction to the show at 16, and I instantly became obsessed. I was lucky enough to have seen the Encores! concert a year later, and I had no trouble "getting" and enjoying the show. I think it's just different strokes for different folks. Not everyone is going to enjoy the show, especially with its nonlinear narrative.

I can't relate to all of the four leads, but I do think Sally's journey is relatable. She goes to that party in hopes of seeing and being with Ben again. They reunite, the passion is there, and ultimately Ben disappoints her (again). It all falls apart in front of her eyes. I think anyone can relate to the disappointment of not being able to have someone or something, especially when you *think* you are so close to it.




Updated On: 8/14/11 at 12:39 PM

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 12:42pm

FWIW, I always wonder if I would have gotten into FOLLIES as young as I did if I wasn't already into Sondheim. By the time I first heard the score (around the age of fourteen) I was already obsessed with SWEENEY, SUNDAY, and ALMN. I didn't love FOLLIES from first listen--I could tell it was disjointed, even from a cast recording--but I played it over and over again and it eventually transfixed me and became my second favorite show of all time. I can see how anyone coming to FOLLIES tabula rasa, or just seeing it once, might leave scratching their head.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 12:57pm

I'm in the same boat, though. I've seen most of his other major works in performance and listen to them on recording constantly. I just watched COMPANY and INTO THE WOODS on Netflix Instant Watch last night. His lyrics in the opening sequence of INTO THE WOODS are just flat-out brilliant.

I guess I was just surprised by everyone's reaction around me at FOLLIES. From where I was sitting, it didn't get a unanimous standing ovation like I thought it might.

I can't believe they wanted it to run without an intermission. It's a long show.

Any pictures of what the original design for FOLLIES was? I mean, I imagine it's a decrepit theater too, no?

[ljay889]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 1:05pm

The original production WAS one act. It had a longer book and a dance number that has been cut from this production.

Here's the original set design. It is set for the finale here.


Updated On: 8/14/11 at 01:05 PM

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 1:14pm

I think being older only makes the book more of a disappointment as one realizes that the themes and conflicts are personally significant and relatable and deserve to be better developed and more fully realized.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 1:32pm

I sat through the original 6 times, five times with no intermission and never wanted there to be one.

Boris Aronson's set was dream-like, not so much a literal crumbling theater as a dream or a nightmare of one. Portions of it would slide on from the wings with some of those divas in Act One that seemed to be coming on in this production just to sing a number. It was a cinematic effect, like you were fading in and fading out on their remembered performances. It was all phenomenally spooky and eerie. The two couples conflicts built to a climax and then Loveland appeared. Aronson's Loveland was gasp-inducing. Picture the effect that happens in this production, multiplied by a thousand.

That sunlight you see in the picture didn't happen until the final scene ("Dear God, it IS tomorrow").

And Florence Klotz's costumes were set pieces in and of themselves, perfectly married to the palette of the set design, so the ghosts and the younger versions seemed part of the set, as if they haunted that space.

There's a book called The Theatre Art of Boris Aronson, out of print now, but find it in a library. It has wonderful photos of the set

[Simon4]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 1:35pm

^ Recently bought a used copy of the Aronson book. Well worth the 40 bucks.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 5:51pm

Henrik, your critique of the Follies book is excellent and you might even convince me to downgrade the book from "brilliant" (which I said on one of these threads) to merely "good."

But look at your own list of great books: "Show Boat, Carousel, South Pacific, Fiddler, A Chorus Line, Gypsy, West Side Story, Lost in the Stars, The Fantasticks, Cabaret, Into the Woods...."

None of these shows has a score as lengthy and varied as Follies'. Only Show Boat even comes close. For various reasons, it was decided that Sondheim would write a monster score, while Goldman would abbreviate his book to what is basically a series of "crossovers", brief dialogue exchanges that serve mostly to lead into the next song. When does Goldman get the opportunities that Hammerstein takes in the R&H shows?

Of course the "book" of a musical is not just the spoken words, but the whole dialogue/song structure. But by this standard, Follies is practically the opposite of the show you name, all of the latter being driven largely by linear dramatic action. (Even Cabaret: the Brechtian comment songs in the club may interrupts the action, but they never change its direction.) In this sense, only A Chorus Line is in the same category as Follies, but the score of ACL is by no means as ambitious.

So aren't we comparing apples and oranges here?

How does Follies compare to Sweeney Todd in your view? Still an apple and an orange in the sense of the latter's linear action, but at least the Todd score is more comparable in length, with Hugh Wheeler forced to write in mini-scenes that must set up the next musical sequence.

***

ETA I think what my rambling above comes down to is that Follies is sui generis to me. I'm not sure how we could put together objective criteria with which to evaluate it and comparisons to other shows lead us nowhere.

Which by no means proves you wrong. If anything, opinions of the book of Follies are subjective, a matter of taste. (Trust me: it's rare I resort to the potato/potAHto argument.)
Updated On: 8/14/11 at 05:51 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 6:01pm

I think it's also prudent to point out that the majority of those musicals that henrik cited were adaptations. Follies was built from the ground-up from no pre-existing script or story.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 6:41pm

joey, I think it's only fair to point out that Sondheim and his collaborators have always maintained that neither Company nor Follies say "all marriages are shams".

I agree with them. If anything, Company says "Marriage is hard, but still better than the alternative." (I don't necessarily agree, but that's what the show says.) Follies says "Sham marriages are easy, real marriages are hard."

This is a minor rebuttal to your excellent post, but I'm sure we both remember the days when Sondheim was vilified as a "marriage hater" (which was, of course, often a coded way of calling him a fag). And neither of us wants to feed that sort of reductionism.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 6:42pm

Gaveston, I think we are almost on the same page, which is why I offered the caveat that Follies is tough and that its sheer ambition and audaciousness present serious challenges to any librettist. And I agree that Follies is not, to take an example from the other end of the spectrum, 1776 - where Peter Stone had the freedom to write gobs of wonderful dialogue, stretches of beautifully wrought text uninterrupted by Sherman Edwards' (in my opinion often underrated - but that's another matter entirely) score. Far from it.

But I'm not sure that I can agree - and here perhaps I mistake your point - that the economy and efficiency required for the Follies book, as a function of its mammoth and countervailing score, mean that that the librettist's chances were insurmountable, or that a compelling book capable of profoundly supporting the show could not have been produced.

Pith is a great virtue. There are rapturous concise one act plays and vapid epic dramas. A truly great librettist, which is what this work required, might have done wonders even with these obstacles.

Theoretically.

But let's say I'm wrong about that.

Assuming, arguendo, that the challenges of time presented a fatal problem, that shouldn't serve as a meaningful handicap. One that should lead anybody to settle for something one genuinely believes to be unsatisfactory or less than compelling. If the restrictions on the librettist meant that the book had to be schematic and, at best, facile, that's no excuse.

If the groundrules are to blame, the show as a whole still suffers. Perhaps if a concise libretto couldn't possibly have proved artful, then it should have been refashioned as a sung through musical, with Sondheim shouldering the burden of doing with additional music and lyrics what Goldman, or, following the argument, any librettist, no matter how gifted, could not.

Interesting at least to consider that possibility and wonder what the show would have been like. And to imagine how wonderful an expanded score might have been, perhaps one resulting merely from Sondheim unlatching his voluminous trunk.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 6:49pm

Finally, Gaveston, I love Sweeney, in every way. And, as we know, interestingly, Sweeney, as ambitious and musically voluminous as Follies, even moreso perhaps, is almost completely sung through.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 7:00pm

Henrik, I think we are on the same page, if not quite in the same paragraph.

And I readily admit I may be blind to Follies' faults because the original Broadway production had such a profound effect on me when I was still, at least legally, a child (age 17).

I agree with you that brevity is the soul of wit (and, personally, I find hysterical lines like "We haven't had an honest talk since 1942. Do you think the Japs will win the war?"). And there's no question that Hugh Wheeler dealt with some of the same limitations and was widely acclaimed for the books that resulted.

Book writers are often overshadowed by the score, which is why book writing is considered a thankless job. But when 90% of an evening is filled with one of the greatest theater scores ever written, I am sympathetic to the competitive challenges of the other 10%.

Or maybe I just feel personally protective of James Goldman. Not that I knew him personally, but there's no question the ultimate book of Follies was created by Goldman, Sondheim, Prince and Bennett. (I'm not saying they all wrote the lines, but that they all made the decisions that resulted in the finished show.) As so often happens in musical theater, however, book writer James Goldman gets all the blame for anything that doesn't work.

[bk]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 8:16pm

"I can't believe they wanted it to run without an intermission. It's a long show.


So, you have a problem sitting through a Harry Potter movie that runs say over two and a half hours? Is that right? Should they put an intermission in that, too? I just don't understand people who can't seem to sit for two hours and fifteen minutes without peeing. They did it for the original Follies, they did it for Pippin, they did it for A Chorus Line, all shows that cannot work, as far as I'm concerned, by inserting an intermission at the exact point where the show needs NOT to stop.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 8:20pm

And a production of FOLLIES without an intermission would run about two hours, top. That's the length of most movies. I've never understood why people could sit through TITANIC without a toilet or smoke break but the thought of doing the same at a live show is unfathomable to some people.