FOLLIES: Thoughts... — Page 3

I think the original production of Follies ran about two hours and five or ten minutes - but the pace was extraordinary - it just flowed from one thing to the next and, of course, back then you didn't have an audience filled with Sondheads screaming their guts out as if they were watching American Idol. That, for me, was the single most dispiriting thing about watching the new revival, which I saw last night - the audience. It started as the lights dimmed and the craziness of each response got worse and worse until one twit in the row ahead of me STOOD UP after Who's That Woman. Yes, Mr. Twit, it's all about YOU, isn't it? He was the only one but it was clear he was trying to coerce others. If that's what theater has devolved to I may have to stop going. It was exactly the same today at Catch Me If You Can - crazy, screaming insanity. And really, for what?

^ It's the Interactive Age, bk.

People don't know how to watch movies at home anymore, they have to "interact" with them either on DVD or BD or their home computers. They can't just sit still and be an audience anymore and just absorb what they're seeing. They have to push buttons and "like" it or vote for their favorites or leave feedback and share it with their friends and post it on their walls and chat about it on message boards.

Granted there are still some who can simply sit in a chair in a theatre and watch a show or movie and keep it a personal experience, but it's a new age now. The audience is taught to believe they are as much a part of the overall experience as the performers on the stage or screen. Everybody's a star! Everybody is involved.

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No, it didn't. As Bruce notes, it ran about two hours and five minutes.

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BK, What did you think of the production?

"The idea of going to the theatre and sitting quietly in your seat is actually a fairly recent construct in terms of theatre history."

I didn't say "quietly." It shouldn't be a punishment.

To clarify, I mean that the focus and energy of the audience is directed at the stage and the action taking place there, not toward some self-aware state of euphoria, as in "see how much I love this?"

And you can definitely tell the difference between someone reacting to a show, and someone interacting with a show. Almost as if they want everyone to know they just pushed the "like" button or "voted" for their favorite performer or song.

I may not be saying it clearly.

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Updated On: 8/14/11 at 09:54 PM

Any picture of the Follies Time cover?

And why not add an intermission after Terri White's number? Is it too soon? I felt like that would make us go out on a high note, and then come back and settle down for a little bit of drama.

This revival was def. longer than 2 hrs and 5 or 10mins. It felt much longer.

Any did anyone else find the dancing in "That Girl" or whatever it's called a little laughable?

It's nice because of the image it closes on. But I don't think an intermission is necessary.

The revival is actually not considerably longer than the original. I'd say, without the intermission, it's running at about 2:10. As I said, I got out of the theatre doors into the lobby at around 10:37, which means it probably ended a few minutes before, and taking into account the fact it didn't start promptly at 8.

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The song is called "The Right Girl." In the original, Michael Bennett choreographed it as a tour de force explosion of Buddy's frustration, express in acting, singing and dance for Gene Nelson, who had been a sort-of second-rate Donald O'Connor in Hollywood in the 1950s

Didn't I read that Michael Bennett thought the dance just ended up being a bunch of silly, crowd-pleasing stunts? Because Gene Neslon wouldn't or couldn't do what Bennett wanted, and that Bennett wanted to cut it but didn't feel Nelson would appreciate having his big solo deleted?

Per Chapin, Nelson had trouble with the number and Bennett had to simplify the steps. (Page 202.) But joey is right that Nelson and Bennett eventually found a way to work together. Bennett continued to demand the very best that Nelson could do (and the implication is that he got it).

But I remember somebody saying something similar to what lizabombs remembers. Maybe it even came from Sondheim himself. I'll try to check "Sondheim & Co."

To me as a viewer, "The Right Girl" was the least interesting of the four leads' "book numbers," especially since "Buddy's Blues" totally topped it a few minutes later.

And, for me, each of the 6 times I saw the original. Gene Nelson's performance of "The Right Girl" was one of the most stunning mergings of acting/singing/dancing every created for the musical theater.

For Bennett, I think it was the link between "Tick Tock" in Company and "The Music and the Mirror" in Chorus Line.

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This is what I remember, from Sondheim and Co:

"Bennett: Well, let's just say (Nelson) couldn't do it. I finally had to take the tap shoes off and redo the number. It ended with him doing tricks which I absolutely hated, but it was the only way to make that number work, to get any kind of applause at all, and unfortunately, they each needed their big number ... if they didn't have it they would have been very unhappy and it would have showed throughout the evening."

Bennett was frustrated with the all the tap in the show. He drove the ladies doing "Who's That Woman?" crazy too and finally removed ALL their tap shoes. All the tap sounds in "Who's That Woman?" came from the chorus girls and boys offstage. Bennett was not very nice to the ladies on the way to that solution, but the number ended up being one of the best-staged ever in musical-theater history.

All of Bennett's quotes are like that in Sondheim & Co. He was a very hot-tempered man and he used exclamatory language: I HATED it...it was the most FABULOUS thing...that's what he was like. Zadan also has him saying things like:

"It's really no secret that I did not like the book to Follies...I never believed that the show would be successful."

Well, yes he DID, actually.

"And I think that 80 perfect of Follies was the greatest musical ever done....The concept and the musical numbers could not support the show...the musical numbers were more successful than the show. To tell the truth, I could not talk about Follies for a year after it opened, I was so bitter about its failure. So much of that show was better than anything else I've ever seen or anything I've ever done."

By the time I met him 10 years later and mentioned my teenage adulation of the show, Chorus Line was well-established and the bitterness about Follies was gone. Or at least, he showed less of it to me than he did to Craig Zadan when that book was first compiled in 1974.

The swings around the poles Gene Nelson ended up doing did exactly what Bennett was looking when he wanted the tapping to express Buddy's frustration and anger. In the end, all those weeks of the two of them rehearsing in private paid off.

And then Michael said unkind things to Craig Zadan. But that was Michael. As long as the number got a HUGE applause, it didn't matter what you went through to get it.

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