Florence Lacey in Follies tonight- Page 2

[ljay889]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 1:10am

Oops! Understudies for both of the males were on.

[binau]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 1:21am

Both of the young males? :P

[ljay889]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 1:22am

Omg. I could swear I had written "young." LOL.

[FrauleinKost]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 4:25am

The show could have been over reeeeeal quick:

Phyllis: You married Ben, didn't you?
Sally: Yes.

*curtain*

[Hanna from Hamburg]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 7:29am

Not necessarily . . . Phyllis and Sally could have proceeded to switch lines and songs for the remainder of the show . . . might have been interesting!

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 3:02pm

Phyllis: You married Ben, didn't you?
Sally: Yes. In my mind.

Sally sings "Losing My Mind"

*curtain*

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 3:33pm

Phyllis would not have lasted long as the wife of a traveling salesman in Phoenix. That marriage would barely have lasted umpteen hours, and there would never have been a Timmy or a Tommy.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 4:46pm

so this u/s list looked something like this:

At this performance this role of....will be played by

Carlotta Campion will be played by Florence Lacey
Sandra Crane will be played by Jessica Sheridan
Young Buddy will be played by Brandon Bieber
Young Ben will be played by Brian Shepard

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 5:23pm

I wouldn't be surprised if Delcroix's absences have something to do with his impending fatherhood--his fiancee is due right around now, if she hasn't had the baby already.

[BroadwayFan12]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 5:29pm

Thanks for the info, ACL. What I don't understand is that there's only one swing for all the young men (and one for all the younger women). What happens if more than one ensemble member is out/understudying another role? Were they one man short last night?
Updated On: 11/10/11 at 05:29 PM

[ACL2006]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 6:46pm

they must have restaged a few things to make up for the missing ensemble male. for a show with such a short run, two swings is legit. if they extend, I would expect more swings to get added.

[raker]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 5:48pm

I saw video of Elaine Paige on Theater Talk singing "I'm Still Here" with all her might. On Saturday, I saw Florence Lacey play and sing it with world-weary restraint. It was perfection. A knock-out.

For me, finally seeing Follies for the first time, almost everything is the show is just right, really wonderful. There was only one thing I thought was all wrong. Bernadette Peters sang Losing My Mind as though she were losing her mind. In the perfect Follies in my head, Sally sings the song with feet firmly on the ground as a deeply felt torch song.

And when Ben starts to fall apart during Live, Laugh, Love, it surprised me to hear the conductor prompt the actor/character with his line. I'm not sure what the desired effect was, but for me it was "what the...?"

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 5:58pm

The conductor always yells out "SOME BREAK" to prompt Ben during his breakdown , it's in the script.

[Brick]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 6:38pm

Caught the matinee yesterday. Very well sold, and a great performance.

Raines has lost some considerable weight, and is still sounds wonderful. Burstein is still a heart-breaking Buddy. Peters is still a bit overcooked, but vocally sounding a lot more sure in her upper register. And Maxwell is taking the Tony and the audience knows it.

I also agree Lacey was fantastic. Simply thrilling. Such a beautiful voice, and a strong interpretation of the song.

[raker]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 7:05pm

I saw the matinee too. Danny Burstein as Buddy was so lovable, it made Sally seem all the more crazy and cruel not to appreciate him. And I loved how Young Sally was played as a hard-edged girl, just the type who eats candybars for breakfast and doesn't make the bed and chases unavailable men.

[binau]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 7:13pm

It is interesting (and because of my bias, a little bit sad) that reactions to Bernadette's performance are still quite mixed. Do you think people who aren't 'theatre fans' feel the same way about her performance?

What is the word of mouth even like for this show outside of BWW?

Updated On: 11/13/11 at 07:13 PM

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 7:14pm

Raines has lost weight since starting Follies or since Guiding Light? Interesting...but good for him!

[ljay889]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 7:20pm

I think it comes down to the fact that Bernadette doesn't have a showy role. I prefer the role of Sally, but Phyllis is practically a guaranteed scene and show stealer. It's not hard to mess up Phyllis, but in my opinion, Sally is the much harder role to successfully play. And I think Bernadette is doing a DAMN good job. Her performance changes quite often, but as long as she isn't overacting, it's a very satisfying performance. Her final moments/exit are unbelievably chilling.
Updated On: 11/13/11 at 07:20 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 8:00pm

In the perfect Follies in my head, Sally sings the song with feet firmly on the ground as a deeply felt torch song.

Interesting point.

The other 3 Follies clearly represent epiphanies for the other characters: Buddy comes to realizes he loves a woman who will never love him, Phyllis realizes that she would be fine "if Lucy and Jessie could only combine," and Ben realizes that he a sham.

In the original production, it WAS more like it is in the perfect Follies in your head: Dorothy Collins's still, tortured torch-song rendition communicated Sally's acceptance that for all the years she had been with Buddy, she has been losing her mind while doing all the things enumerated in the song (drinking coffee, talking to friends, standing in the middle of the floor, dimming the lights), all the while losing her mind. But all those things were private madnesses she was admitting to, things Sally had kept from Buddy and her friends. Whether or not she would go on losing her mind was left unsaid, but the song was a song of psychological insight and clarity--and of acceptance.

For the past few years, however, we have seen the steady pathologizing of the supposed mental health of Sally's character. It started with the astonishing performance by Victoria Clark in the Encores presentation. But Clark's Sally was at least functionally psychotic: She got through the days bearing her burden...everything fell apart only when she got to the Weismann and actually saw Ben again and kissed him.

Bernadette's Sally is certifiable, from the moment she comes in and first opens her mouth. She seems like the chorus girl who went batty, the one everyone in Phoenix whispers about: "Poor thing, she used to be a dancer in New York." "Her husband cheats on her, you know." "Poor thing..."

I think she's one of those actresses (whom we love) who has become un-direct-able. She revs up and does what she does, and it's so-so-so-Bernadette that everyone says "Oh-it's-so-wonderful!" but no one is able to help her exercise taste and restraint: no one is able to stop her from sinking into overacting, over-pausing and maudlinly crying instead of making the audience cry.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 8:10pm

I think people less "into" theatre who are not vivisecting Bernadette's performance or career history are probably more moved and haunted by her emotional performance than hardcore theatre fans who have to compare her take with the nuances of every Sally predecessor and recording.

Its a shame what we lose sometimes.

[inlovewithjerryherman]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 8:13pm

PalJoey, that's such a spot-on assessment. There's nothing anyone can do to stop Bernadette from doing what she does.

I've love to hear what you think about Susan Moniz's Sally - at first she comes across as winsome and girlish, but as the evening goes on, it's clear she's batsh*t crazy. Her "Losing My Mind" also ends with a weird sort of acceptance and pride, rather than Bernie's breakdown.

[Skip2]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 8:22pm

Hi Raker:

That's exactly the effect Ben's forgetting of the words is supposed to create:

"What the...?"

But in the original, Aronsen's set started jerking and convulsing and the cast started roaming around the set and the ghosts started reprising their numbers, so the effect then became:

"Oh...my...God!"

[raker]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 9:31pm

Speaking of forgetting the words, I shed a little tear for adorable Emily Whitman who seems losing it to Alzheimer's. It was a nice, if heartbreaking detail.

[HelloDanny2]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 10:52pm

I would have loved to have seen it. Thank you for the details.

[BroadwayFan12]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 11:59pm

PalJoey, I see where you're coming from, but she certainly made me cry!