tracker
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

Follies last night

evic
#1Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 4:06pm

Saw the show the third week of previews- I loved it then and love it even more now- there were some minor changes in the Lucy dance and some other blocking bits that worked better. Audience went crazy for all of the show stoppers- cast was impeccible. Jan had one slip during Leave You after her groan she got behind in the music but covered well and got one of the biggest hands of the evening. On a side note- there was a group of shrews behind me who were chattering before the show and the witch behind me kept kicking my seat before it started. I asked her to stop and she said she didnt even realize she was doing it. One commented how ugly the theater was and wondered how they could have it in such awful condition (she was referring to the covered walls)-totally clueless. Then as soon as the Prologue started, they started whispering and I turned around and told them to shut up and one told me to take a valium- a 28 piece orchestra playing gorgeous music and they talk- Stupid hags. Other than that- a perfect performance and evening.

Just_John Profile Photo
Just_John
#2Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 4:23pm

I cannot STAND when people think they can talk during a performance and when you let them know they cannot, they feel the need to talk back like you're the one being annoying. ugh, the storied I have about that.

GlindatheGood22  Profile Photo
GlindatheGood22
#2Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 4:39pm

I made the mistake of seeing Follies on a Wednesday afternoon. It was like being on the geriatric ward. Before the show started, the woman next to me actually turned to me and said, "Shouldn't you be in school?"


I know you. I know you. I know you.

themysteriousgrowl Profile Photo
themysteriousgrowl
#3Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 5:01pm


You need to read these boards moar often. Don't you know that if people talk during a show, it's the show's fault for not holding their attention? And that is certainly the case with this unpleasant monstrosity.


CHURCH DOOR TOUCAN GAY MARKETING PUPPIES MUSICAL THEATER STAPLES PERIOD OIL BITCHY SNARK HOLES

Gaveston2
#4Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 5:11pm

What a shame! When I saw the original production, the geriatrics at the Saturday matinee only made noise when they cheered for each of the stars as they entered, and then again when the ladies promenaded to "Beautiful Girls."

Since Yvonne De Carlo (from TV's "The Munsters") was the only one I'd heard of (outside of press for the show), the reactions of the matinee ladies gave me a sense of what it meant, for those who knew them, to have so many famous figures on stage.

***

themysteriousgrowl, 40 years ago I would have agreed: if an audience was restless and preoccupied, it was the fault of the show. But since then, people have become so conditioned by TV, the internet, and rock concerts (all terrific media in their own rights and ones I enjoy) that have discouraged the kind of concentration necessary to enjoy serious work in the theater.

Attempts to compete by overamplifying stage actors and using mixed media and special effects to keep audiences dazzled have only made attention spans shorter, I fear.

Nowadays, I'd just as soon see theater in a black box with 99 seats. The intimacy tends to make audience members behave better.
Updated On: 9/29/11 at 05:11 PM

After Eight
#5Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 5:52pm

I'd say the "geriatrics," so decried here and on other threads, show more astute judgments about this show than many of their juniors who are in a perpetual swoon even before the first note is played.

Nothing wrong with matinee audiences. Yes, the theatre is ugly. Yes, the show plods resolutely to nowhere.

binau Profile Photo
binau
#6Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 6:05pm

After Eight, you're really scraping the barrel trying to find a segue between this topic content and bashing FOLLIES. This thread has nothing to do about the elderly not enjoying the show (although, I always thought that being close to death if anything they'd have a greater appreciation :P)...and you obviously know that your meaning of the theatre being 'ugly' is different to what they meant. Can't you wait until there is, or come up with, a more ideal transition to bash the show?


"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

themysteriousgrowl Profile Photo
themysteriousgrowl
#7Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 6:13pm


If I live to be 105, I'll never understand where people get the idea that "geriatrics" are mean and miserable and rigid and maybe just a little sad, too.

I'll just never understand it.

I'll just never, never, never understand it.

I'll never, never understand it.


CHURCH DOOR TOUCAN GAY MARKETING PUPPIES MUSICAL THEATER STAPLES PERIOD OIL BITCHY SNARK HOLES

ljay889 Profile Photo
ljay889
#8Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 6:14pm

Yeah, AfterEight, it is such a horrible thing that younger people are excited about THEATER. That really upsets you?

themysteriousgrowl Profile Photo
themysteriousgrowl
#9Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 6:31pm


Then again, if I live to be 105, perhaps I will understand it.


CHURCH DOOR TOUCAN GAY MARKETING PUPPIES MUSICAL THEATER STAPLES PERIOD OIL BITCHY SNARK HOLES

After Eight
#10Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 7:56pm

Qolbinau,

Did you read the original poster's entire post? If you did or do, you found or will find the following statement.

"One commented how ugly the theater was and wondered how they could have it in such awful condition"

I was responding to that statement, as well as to several derogatory comments in the thread regarding "geriatrics" at the matinees.

Ljay,

I'm thrilled that young people are excited about the theatre. That's what the theatre needs to survive. And I'm thrilled by your excitement about Follies, and qolbinau's as well.

I thank you for all your reports on the show's progress.

But I'm definitely not thrilled with the bashing of seniors. I assure you that there are many who are as excited about the theatre as any young person, and who, just by the circumstance of their age, know a great deal more not only about the theatre, but about life in general.

binau Profile Photo
binau
#11Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 8:15pm

The context of that quote and the importance of it, was that the shrew in question didn't realise that the theatre was intentionally 'dressed down', not that the Marquis Theatre is ugly, which it may very well be. (I.e. it isn't relevant to assert that her comments were justified by saying the theatre is ugly because it doesn't capture the meaning behind what she was saying).


"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

Reginald Tresilian Profile Photo
Reginald Tresilian
#12Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 8:19pm

I don't see where the OP mentions geriatrics, though I'm aware someone else did.

I also don't see where the people the OP mentioned, whatever their age, expressed any opinion of the show, much less showed discernment about it. I just saw stuff about kicking his seat and saying the theater was ugly and talking during the show.

After Eight
#13Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 8:40pm

Qolbinau,

The woman referred to by the op, so charmingly referrred to by both you and evic as a "shrew," was obviously referring to the ugly mortuary drapes inadvisably hung up in the theatre.

And yes, the woman was absolutely right. It was ugly, hideously ugly.

AC126748 Profile Photo
AC126748
#14Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 8:42pm

Do you approve of people talking one the performance has begun, then snippily telling the OP to "take a valium" when s/he asks them to shut up? Does age matter, in that case?


"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

binau Profile Photo
binau
#15Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 8:49pm

I feel like I'm really beating a dead horse here, so I'm sorry to drag this on because it isn't that important. But obviously the notable part about her comment is that she thought the theatre was in genuinely bad condition. This is different from the kind of ugliness you think it is, I think.


"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

After Eight
#16Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 8:50pm

AC,

It's bad to be rude at any age.

Ageism is bad, at any age.

Calling people shrews, witches, hags, and scornfully, "geriatrics," is bad at any age.

Gaveston2
#17Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 9:18pm

^^^^^

And, hence, my defense of the geriatrics when I first saw the show. But, then, they actually liked FOLLIES, so I'm sure you dismiss them out of hand. LOL.

After Eight
#18Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 9:30pm

Uhhh, Gaveston2, you actually don't understand that your very use of the expression, "the geriatrics,", is itself derogatory?

I expected better from you.


AC126748 Profile Photo
AC126748
#19Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 9:38pm

It's really not, unless you choose to read the term in such a way.


"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

Reginald Tresilian Profile Photo
Reginald Tresilian
#20Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 9:48pm

Not to speak for Gaveston, but I took his use of the phrase--even without the scare quotes--to be as ironic as After Eight's.

Gaveston2
#21Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 10:05pm

Thank you, Reginald, and, yes, of course.

In fact, at age 57 I assume I am considered one of the "geriatrics" by this board.

PalJoey Profile Photo
PalJoey
#22Follies last night
Posted: 9/29/11 at 10:52pm

I'm so disappointed. I thought, from the subject line, that this thread was going to be about Follies.


Gypsy9 Profile Photo
Gypsy9
#23Follies last night
Posted: 9/30/11 at 6:24am

I turned 70 last week, a significant dividing line to me. I don't really feel old, but when I look into a mirror, I definitely look old. At any rate, I guess I am now part of the geriatric set and may be looked upon as such by younger theatregoers. Well, the hell with them. I do not talk during shows and am very annoyed by those who do, regardless of their age. A device that I have used in the past goes like this: I turn around and say to the guilty party, "I'm sorry, but the people on stage are making so much noise that I can hardly hear you." This usually works, at least for the time being.

I am seeing FOLLIES in December and am looking forward to it. Since I am a long time member of this Board, I am aware of the draping of the already ugly Marquis Theatre, so I won't have to comment on that aspect of the production. I am reading EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE by Ted Chapin which dissects the preparation of the original production with flair. Like Pal Joey, I came to this thread hoping to hear the latest about this critically acclaimed show. So, let's get on with it. And please stop looking at me as if I were old. I have to be some age, so I may as well be 70.


"Madam Rose...and her daughter...Gypsy!"

redmustang
#24Follies last night
Posted: 9/30/11 at 7:01am

Gypsy9 - what a great line to use on talkers at the theatre, but I doubt that most of today's theatre-goers would appreciate the wit. They'd be whispering to each other: "What did he just say?" for the next five minutes. I, too, was misled into thinking this thread was about the show. OP, talk about the show.


Videos