"Follies" Questions- Page 4

[ljay889]

Posted: 8/12/11 at 7:51pm

Good points! Have you seen this new production yet? I would be interested in reading your thoughts on it. They are using the Encores! version of the book. So it's basically a truncated version of the original, with some minor material from revised books added in (most notably: Sally's lead-in to "In Buddy's Eyes").
Updated On: 8/12/11 at 07:51 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/12/11 at 7:54pm

Alas, I am on the West Coast (and not even the coast: I live in Palm Springs), so I won't see the new version unless there's a tour.

But I'll be happy to read your reactions in the meantime.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/12/11 at 10:21pm

"Yeah cuz the script has substantially changed for all versions."

Anyone else find this ironic?

[chewy5000]

Posted: 8/12/11 at 10:52pm

AAh, Eric's photos are no longer available!

Perhaps I should just buy the programme on eBay. Is it the 40 page version that has the centrefold thingo?

[justoldbill]

Posted: 8/13/11 at 3:12am

In the original production, the show does end with just the two couples and their younger memories. The idea, as Hal Prince has written, was to keep the feeling of the whole evening as ambiguous as possible- is there really a party going on? Is the theatre still standing? Will it be torn down tomorrow? Was it torn down yesterday? Or is the whole evening a meditation on a theme? That's why the dawn finale is as it is, with no other party-goers.
One of Michael Bennett's brilliant touches was having the memories appear in the costumes we first saw them in during the Prologue(regardless of the MANY costume changes they had throughout the evening). Ultimately, they don't "change", and they don't escape the past and walk out of the theatre into the daylight the way their older selves do.

An evening of ambiguity. Like COMPANY. Get it?

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 8/13/11 at 5:52am

Yes, Henrik, I appreciate the irony.

I doubt Sondheim would put "Follies" in the same class as "P&B" (even if I might), and thus far, at least one of the writers has been available to consult on each revision.

But if 23 years from now when I am 80, ART hires somebody to write a new book for "Stephen Sondheim's Follies" and the collaborators announce they are going to fix the "onion peeling" structure of the original and replace it with a linear plot, while placing the show at a TV studio (theater being so passe)... Well, I probably won't be as polite as Sondheim was in his letter.