Where to begin?
I'll start by reiterating just how phenomenal this score is. One of the greatest ever written, I teared up on multiple occasions hearing the orchestra play that music. The program even pointed out a quirk I hadn't noticed before: "Too Many Mornings" has the accompaniment line of "Pleasant Little Kingdom" (the song written to lead into "Mornings"
embedded in Sally's bridge section.
Frank Rich wrote that to be a Sondheim fan is to have your heart broken. This is especially true of a Follies fan, who is eternally waiting for a revival that will rival the iconic and legendary 1971 production. This revival has gotten buzz that it might be the one. With a heavy heart, I have say, in my mind, that is simply not true.
Let's start with the good. The script is pretty much the original, even if subtle line changes are odd and don't really make sense (why is the theatre now being torn down for a shopping mall?). There is no intermission, allowing the show to progress naturally into Loveland. And Janice Dee, our Phyllis, has a naturally cutting wit and acidity that brings her character to the forefront, at least until "Could I Leave You?" rolls around.
But I'm sad to say that there is much more bad to talk about than good. The set is two broken brick walls on a turntable. One wall has a huge light up sign that reads "Weissman's FOLLIES". The turntable supposedly separates be interior party with the exterior of the theatre, where the primary 4 often go to escape. Because the one thing Follies thrives on is literal staging.
With the exception of the Whitmans, Hattie, and Heidi, each of the supporting characters have been given odd direction and allowed to bring their own *unique* interpretations of their songs. Solange naturally has two Parisian men dancing with her during "Ah, Paris!", complete with berets and limp wrists. Both Stella and Carlotta (a desperate Tracie Bennett) have turned their songs into personal breakdowns, arguably a fine choice for "I'm Still Here", but random and wrong for "Who's That Woman?" (Unlike "Still Here", not a character song, but a pastiche not reflecting Stella's interior life). The worst offender has to be the fact that the older women disappear for the Tap section of "Who's That Woman?", leaving their younger selves alone. That song is at the core of the show - young and old together; not showing the older women as pathetic, but a able to keep up with their memories. One of the most thrilling visual metaphors is lost for no good reason.
As for our other 3 leads, they all start the show as... well people about to have mental breakdowns. When Imelda's Sally yells at Buddy during their FIRST exchange, it's like having Martha sob about her dead son in the first scene of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". These actors are not allowed to build the tensions as the show goes on, instead acting deranged from the outset, and it make the already tough show even more difficult to bear.
None of the main actors have any major revelatory moments with their roles - and Imelda in particular sounds BAD when singing her songs. I know she's no Barbara Cook, but being the musical theatre goddess of London, I expected a little better.
Oh, also, "The Right Girl" is a dance duet between Buddy and Young Buddy, with Young Sally and Young Ben making out during be first verse. Why? I have no clue.
Poor Dee is so uncomfortable singing I had to feel sorry for her. Phyllis is the easiest character to get into, simply because Goldman's book works for her so well in the first hour of the show. Her lines are dripping with ice and acidity, and Dee gets that. She brings the dry wit Alexis Smith can be heard delivering on the soundboard. But "Could I Leave You?" was trepidatious at best. She even forgot the lyrics of "would it pass? It would pass!" during the matinee, letting the orchestra take over it. She remembered during the evening show. In fact, I was reminded multiple times of my Roundabout audio, where the leads can barely sing a note. At times, this production rivals it.
Which brings me to Loveland. The worst and most amateurish point of the show. The set is CHEAP and looks it. The costumes are CHEAP. The entire affect is embarrassingly and just makes a point for those people who say the sequence is pointless. For "Buddy's Blues", Margie and Sally are men in drag. It didn't work for Hal Prince and Michael Bennett, so why should it work here? Imelda's "Losing My Mind" is a peon of anger, odd since Sally is singing a torch song as a singer in a metaphysical Follies, not as the actual character of Sally. Dee has to bring out her young self to dance with her during "Lucy and Jesse" and struggles during the... high notes (?). Oh, and Ben's breakdown is clearly framed as the character, not the actor, which loses the entire point of the sequence and the moment where the audience is unsure where it is.
The ending is fine, and during the Matinee Imelda delivered her "I should have died the first time" line directly to me. It was powerful and moving. Imelda has a great Sally in her. This is not it. Maybe a lot of these actors have great "Follies" performances in them. This production holds none of them.
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium." - Patti LuPone, a Memoir
