Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix "Follies"

I was reading in a thread earlier that after Follies went out of town in Boston, Michael Bennett was aware that the show needed some fixes. Allegedly, he brought up two ideas to Hal Prince: they needed to bring in Neil, Simon to punch up the book, or Sondheim needed to write more book songs and create a sung-through show (which would also allow more "Bennett Moments". Obviously, the show was fixed and by opening night became the iconic show we know and (mostly) love, but I was wondering if anyone could validate these rumors - I found the second one particularly interesting.

Well the book is basically one liners and insults that are meant to be funny and the laughs weren't consistent in Boston, so I can see how Bennett would get the idea.

Yes but it was awhile ago. In addition,for whatever it is worth, I saw the original production that played the Winter Garden..When all is said and done , it is a serious piece.

The problem with Follies's book is that it's pretty structurally inept. The zingers are amusing, but the show doesn't really read well, and without a grand production to illustrate the tragic elements of the show, it comes off as a nasty piece of work

I believe "Let's bring in 'Doc' Simon" was what everybody said whenever a show didn't seem to be working in those days. (Unless, that is, they were calling for Jerome Robbins.)

James Goldman's strength was one-liners (see THE LION IN WINTER), so I'm not sure how Simon would have been an improvement. "We haven't had an honest talk since 1941. Do you think the Japs will win the war?" still makes me laugh. If Boston audiences weren't laughing, it was because the dark humor of the piece seemed to conflict with the musical comedy numbers, not because Goldman couldn't write funny.

I question whether Broadway was ready for a sung-through Sondheim musical in early 1971. Look at the fates of STREET SCENE, GOLDEN APPLE, etc. Even MOST HAPPY FELLA (almost sung-through) got a tepid reception in the 1950s.

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (and then EVITA) got the sung-through trend rolling, but both were basically stagings of their concept albums and the use of pop and rock styles made it clear they were a "new kind" of show. IMO, obviously, since there's no way to prove what might have been.

But that final half-hour of FOLLIES *IS* sung-through and audiences found that difficult enough to follow (however much they enjoyed it).

BTW, yes, I read EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE, but I didn't memorize it. What does it say on this subject?

Updated On: 11/17/15 at 08:46 PM

I absolutely agree with Auggie. I would only add that while FOLLIES was the "anti-nostalgia" show, its marketing made it seem of a kind with NO, NO, NANETTE and DAMES AT SEA and the other nostalgia shows of the time. No wonder audiences were unsettled, even feeling betrayed!

The fact that so many of us adored the show as teenagers probably says something very sad about our childhoods. LOL. Or, as somebody (Sondheim?) has said, maybe we liked it because we thought it could never happen to us. (That said and though the latest revival didn't really compare, I enjoyed it as much at 60 as I did at 17. But I knew what I was going to get when I bought the tix.)

Updated On: 11/20/15 at 08:55 PM

I seem to remember from the Follies book (Everything was Possible) that Buddy was given a whole plethora of jokes though the course of the show. He was a jokester. The only one that remained when all was said and done was that terrible joke about the drunk pilot he tells about the beginning.

It's interesting. When Follies was in New York in 2011 I fell in love with it. Saw it 5 times, and then 5 more times in Los Angeles. But whenever I brought people with me to see it they told me they were bored. How is that even possible?? Hundreds of years of stage experience up there, top noch songs, costumes, orchestra... it was beautiful.

I actually miss it very much and get melancholy thinking I can never see it again...

I actually don't understand the hate for Goldman's book. It's absolutely perfect for the show. There are certain lines ("If you don't kiss me Ben..." that say so much about the characters. The original book is pretty much perfect - especially the scene after "Who's That Woman?" where the two couples fight. This is often cut down or softened, but it reveals so much about these people. And Sally's suicide lines does so much to bring her a full character who is not fully stable, and the recent revival took those out so it just seemed like Sally was bat-**** crazy for no reason. She's not a stable person and never has been, she's just been pulling herself together because of the slight chance she might get Ben. And after that's gone - BAM!

If someone thinks they can write a better book, please do it. Oh wait, they already have and it went terribly. There's simply no way to beat Goldman's original book. Someone just needs to tell Widow Goldman that.

PS I love Everything Was Possible and have read it multiple times, but while the Neil Simon thing might have been brought up, I was mostly wondering about the suggestion for Sondheim to write the complete show - an idea that is so interesting to me. It wouldn't have been Follies, but it would have been something haunting, I'm sure.

Thanks to Pal Joey for putting the matter so clearly and so succinctly.

And add me to those who like Goldman's original book. I found it thrilling, because it had never occurred to me (at 17) that a musical could "peel the onion" just like some straight plays do. I found Goldman's libretto funny and sad and very suspenseful, probably BECAUSE the amazing songs interrupted the navel gazing. (Somewhere in the garage, I have the original rehearsal script. I need to dig it out.)

(As most know, "onion peeling" refers to a narrative in which the characters look back in time, stripping away layers of delusion to see where things went wrong, rather than taking action to move forward to a new state. When onion peeling, retrospection IS the action. No wonder Sally seems so nuts! She's out-of-sync with the entire world of FOLLIES.)

IIRC, when Neil Simon tried to "peel the onion" in some of his later plays/screenplays (CHAPTER TWO, for example), the results were no more commercially popular then FOLLIES. To be clear, the BRIGHTON BEACH trilogy may look to the past, but the plays aren't retrospective in structure; they merely start in the past and move forward. And audiences liked them.)

Updated On: 11/18/15 at 12:19 AM

"Sally's suicide lines"

Which lines are these?

"The problem with Follies's [sic] book is that it's pretty structurally inept."

Oh, ugh, this comment. There'll always be those who can't stand the Follies book, and others (like me) who think it's one of the best books ever created for a musical (and I'm only talking about the original seen at the Winter Garden, not any of the inferior revisions).

Some like to see Follies as a parade of old folks strutting their stuff in flashy, old-fashioned musical numbers. But Follies (need it be said again?) is about how life takes us all to places we never expected or wanted to go.

A friend from high school married his first love, had several children, has worked the same respectable job for decades, is now a still-happily-married grandfather; and yet time and again, he'll muse about how he had to abandon his dream of medical school when their first child came so early in his life, and he had to get a job right away. He will always wonder about his life as a doctor, the life that never happened.

That is what Follies is about.

It doesn't surprise me that our young AfterDeath, Fantod, thinks the FOLLIES books is inept, and a "nasty piece of work." Well, it's not inept, but it is a "nasty piece of work" intentionally. It doesn't sugarcoat (the way a lot of the revisions have). It's been explained so much more articulately in this thread than I ever could explain, so just add me to the chorus of people who think Goldman's original book is wonderful.

And holds up better than a lot of Neil Simon plays.

jv92, now that's just unfair. I didn't say the book was a failure. In fact, it's exactly what the show needed in terms of script. Calling it a nasty piece of work was not an insult, but a comment on the tone of the work, which is intentionally mean-spirited. I don't even have a problem with that, as there are many excellent movies and plays that are mean-spirited. I was merely saying that the show was designed to be on stage, and not to be read. Now, the production I saw (at the Kennedy Center) just wasn't that kind of crazy good production that the original was, so it didn't really work for me as a whole. I wasn't really bored by it, but in the end I just couldn't care what happened. It's a mood piece, and when the mood isn't there, it doesn't really work.