Follies 1987 London Production (and general Follies thread =] )- Page 9
Follies 1987 London Production (and general Follies thread =] )
#200Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 5/2/15 at 8:10pm
The movie 1971FolliesFan made was wonderful and this thread is perfect for it. It seems like only yesterday when I was reading the boards when the 2011 revival happened and it's good to know that a lot of us FOLLIES fans are still here after all this time.
While I sort of liked the 2011 revival; I sincerely (as a broken record mind you) hope that Broadway will assemble this team: Bartlett Sher as the director, Christopher Wheeldon as co-director and choreographer, Michael Yeargan as set designer, Catherine Zuber as costume designer, and Donald Holder as lighting designer for a 50th anniversary revival at LCT.
That team alone proves that Broadway isn't dry or absent of great talent that uses creative imagination to it's fullest.
#202Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 9/12/15 at 2:54am
Thanks so much for posting this!
"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
#203Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 10/10/17 at 6:48am
Little update. Though the original 'Follies in Miniature' footage was dubbed, it lacked precision due to the technology of the day...
Here is a fully synched and dubbed version of the footage (I've also tried to upgrade the quality, which isn't the best. If anyone has a better quality one, let me know!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56t99hxCG88&feature=youtu.be
#204Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 11/21/17 at 11:44am
Once again, there are ghosts among us.
#205Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 7/7/18 at 3:03pm
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHOSE MEMORIES MAY BE FADING...
#206Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 10/13/19 at 4:44pmBump for the divine InappropriatePatti.
#207Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 10/13/19 at 5:44pm
Every time this thread returns I hope for more footage from the Shaftesbury.
PalJoey did you see the National Theatre production?
Jarethan
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/10/11
#208Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 10/13/19 at 11:41pm
I bought tickets to see the production at the Shaftesbury Theatre twice in one week, very early in the run. I LOVED the original production in Boston and NYC, and got tickets to see it twice on a business trip. The first time, I invited three friends from work who were traveling with me. I had told them how great the show was, I was dying as we were watching it (admittedly overdramatically), because it just couldn’t compare to the original. First, the sets were ugly, the sides of f the stage as I remember were essentially wrapped in a see-through plastic, which didn’t work for me.
Diana Rigg, who I thought would be great, was lousy, never more than when Phyllis needed to sing and dance. My favorite number in the show has always been Lucy and Jessie, which was cut in favor of Country House, a mediocre number in which she did a faux strip-tease; I seem to think that one of the other Follies numbers was different, also, but I can’t remember for sure.
I didn’tknow why 40 plus years ago, but I cringed through many of the dialogue scenes, thinking that the book was worse than the original. Most importantly, it did not have the original Harold Prince direction. I don’t remember the choreography. At the end, I remember almost apologizing to my friends for the buildup because no one, including me, liked it at all.
I wasted the second ticket and went to a different show. In retrospect, I probably should have begun to think that it was the original production, rather than the musical Itself, that was IMO to this day.one of the greatest.. Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince and Boris Aronson did some of the greatest work in the theatre on that show, but the book was never great, and the changes in the London production were All for the worse.
It was not as bad as the production at the Belasco, but almost.
#209Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 10/14/19 at 4:00pm
"Ah! But Underneath" replaced "Lucy and Jessie." but yes, a "Country House" was added to what was now Act 1.
A shame to hear about Rigg, whom I would have thought was wonderful. She's about the only good thing in the movie of A Little Night Music. I like her okay on the cast recording (not a great cast recording, but okay), but of course a performance in a recording studio is very different from one onstage.
#210Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 10/14/19 at 10:49pm
Jarethan said: "It was not as bad as the production at the Belasco, but almost."
I don’t remember too much about it but I remember loving the production at the Belasco. I think previous versions I’d seen (Leicester and the Festival Hall semi-staging) had very bare sets and the design and direction of the Matthew Warchus’ mouting reached right out to the back of the orchestra (SRO) and just pulled me right in. Also I felt like I was seeing a cast of legends that befitted the piece (Marni Nixon for goodness sake!) I’m aware it’s not a popular opinion in Broadway circles but I am VERY glad I saw it and it is the one (of the five productions of Follies I’ve now seen) that I’d love to be able to revisit; Though Mary Millar (OLC Mdme Giry) made for the most heartbreaking Sally I’m ever likely to witness and her presence is VERY much missed.
#211Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 10/16/19 at 11:32am
devonian.t said: "PalJoey did you see the National Theatre production?"
Only on video, where most of the performances seemed overblown. I'm told it was more effective live, but I have accepted that I will never like another Follies, having been so obsessed by the original as a teenager.
Jarethan
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/10/11
#212Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 10/16/19 at 5:52pm
PalJoey said: "devonian.t said: "PalJoey did you see the National Theatre production?"
Only on video, where most of the performances seemed overblown. I'm told it was more effective live, but I have accepted that I will never like another Follies, having been so obsessed by the original as a teenager.
I have definitely reached that conclusion. The greatest musical production in my lifetime of viewing, and it will likely never be repeated, even approached, in greatness.
chrishuyen
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/12/14
#213Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 4/13/20 at 10:22pm
I've been recently getting into Follies and have been wondering about the various changes across the years when I stumbled across this thread. So for those that are still around on this site, thanks for all your contributions, it was a wonderful read, and having video of that original cast is fantastic!
#214Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 8/31/22 at 8:47pm
Hi, folks, we bring you, direct from Phoenix, live and in person...PALJOEY!
#216Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 8/31/22 at 9:56pm
PalJoey: Are my eyes deceiving me? Is this for real? 
"Noel [Coward] and I were in Paris once. Adjoining rooms, of course. One night, I felt mischievous, so I knocked on Noel's door, and he asked, 'Who is it?' I lowered my voice and said 'Hotel detective. Have you got a gentleman in your room?' He answered, 'Just a minute, I'll ask him.'" (Beatrice Lillie)
Updated On: 8/31/22 at 09:56 PM
Jarethan
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/10/11
#217Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 8/31/22 at 10:06pm
There is a repeating line in one of my favorite John Wayne movies: ‘I thought you were dead’, followed by the Duke sneering ‘not hardly’ (or something like that. Welcome back!
#218Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 9/1/22 at 6:28am
PalJoey said: "Hi, folks, we bring you, direct from Phoenix, live and in person...PALJOEY!"
Thank goodness......... i've missed you
Slotted spoons don't hold much soup
#219Follies: more on the London production
Posted: 9/8/22 at 8:58am
As Mark Twain did (or did not) say, "The reports of my death are grossly exaggerated." I just came to bump this old Follies thread for a Twitter pal and today I'm just checking in on the Funny Girl and Into the Woods posts. Hope you're all well. And, as Alan Jay Lerner wrote, "Take care of this house."
bear88
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/26/16
#220Follies: discovering it later
Posted: 9/9/22 at 2:39am
The bad news for me, I guess, is that I'm much too young to have seen the original show, although I'm not sure I would have appreciated some of its themes as much had I seen it as a teenager..
The good news is that I have discovered it more recently, both in various online incarnations - including more than I expected in clips from the 1971 musical - and have had a chance to see a regional production this summer at the San Francisco Playhouse.
I have seen the musical twice, and am a little tempted to back a third time because it's closing on Saturday. My wife didn't care for the "Loveland" portion of the show, though the music person in her was pleased that she recognized the similarities between "Losing My Mind" and Gershwin's "The Man I Love." (I am too thick, apparently, to hear it.)
I can sort of see her point, but I wasn't bothered by it as much, because the show is so brilliant and sad in its deconstruction of the appeal and trap of nostalgia. Sally Durant Plummer, in a play, probably wouldn't be as sympathetic a character, aside from the show's feminist take on the dilemma in which she finds herself. But in a musical, Sally feels like one of the most tragic characters in musical theater history. I'm not sure if we're really supposed to believe that Phyllis and Ben will make a serious go of it, but they leave with a little hope, and Phyllis in particular has gained something.
Sally, however, is totally bereft by the end. While the references to suicide that I guess were in the original show are gone, that doesn't make her future look much brighter. Buddy doesn't seem much better off. Reading this thread has been fascinating, because I didn't realize all the different incarnations the show has been through over the years. (Some of the changes seem very misguided, but I guess it's understandable, given the inability of Follies to turn a profit. It's another Sondheim show people are always trying to fix, I guess.)
During the musical, of course, there are such wonderful songs that work even if you don't know all the references Sondheim was going for. "Broadway Baby" feels like such an old classic that it's surprising that it was a new song in 1971. "Who's That Woman," which was staged and choreographed wonderfully given budgetary limitations, feels like the musical's bittersweet but triumphant centerpiece.
I appreciate all the video of the shows, the documentary of the concert performance, and other things I've found. But as with all theater, it's just different to see it live.
#221Follies: discovering it later
Posted: 3/10/23 at 11:33am
The Ben I'll never be...who remembers him?
#222Follies: discovering it later
Posted: 3/11/23 at 3:46am
Just listened to the London cast recording for the first time in years and enjoyed it well enough. The changes are peculiar to be sure, but I wish I could have seen Maria Björnson’s designs. Also never knew Mike Ockrent directed it.
#223Follies: discovering it later
Posted: 3/11/23 at 5:45am
A few years back I finally got to read the script of the London Follies while watching a fuzzy video. As others have said in this OLD thread (that I'm sure I contributed to years back) the actual book was almost a complete rewrite really--it was not like the revisions made (and that Sondheim and Goldman never talked about) to productions starting with the 1998 Paper Mill to "soften" it and make the party more literal (revisions that with the death of Widow Goldman seem finally now to be reversing) although I do think some of those really change the tone of the piece.
One BIG change for London was the way the ghosts of the four leads interacted with their present versions--including eventually talking directly to them. Indeed it seems like Loveland in London was almost a lesson to the present versions (who are there watching the ghosts perform the now separate You're Gonna Love Tomorrow and Love Will See Us Through and then kinda get compelled to do their, partially new, songs) which is also why after Ben's Make the Most of Your Music (which isn't remotely a breakdown song) the mature versions re-sing those songs in a way that shows they've "come to terms" with their past and decisions. Again, completely different from the post Loveland sequences even in the revised 98- on version (with Sally's suicidal attitude pretty much gone, the addition of a scene with Carlotta and the others leaving the party and cracking wise--were they just hanging around while these characters imagined or performed Loveland?--etc. That scene WAS retained for the National Theatre but at least was placed *before* Loveland, and the final scene restored all the dialogue from the 1971 book.)
#224Follies: discovering it later
Posted: 3/13/23 at 6:30pm
This thread was and remains one of the highlights of my Broadwayworld experience when I was posting regularly here many years ago. The shared knowledge and experience of Follies enhanced my own understanding of why the show means so much to me.
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