Sally or Phyllis? — Page 2

This thread should be regularly bumped for paljoey's great account alone.

As for me, when I was 17 there was no question: I preferred Phyllis and thought Sally was something of a drip.

I don't agree that "In Buddy's Eyes" is totally a lie, however. Yes, it's another feeble attempt to make Ben jealous (Sally rode to the reunion on the short bus) and it's hardly the whole truth. But I think it's also true that Buddy treats Sally as if she's a princess and THAT'S PART OF THE PROBLEM! Buddy isn't the only one who wants the one he can't get. His devotion to Sally may make her feel safe and warm, but it doesn't make her feel thrilled and alive as she imagines she will feel with Ben!

But now that I am 40 years older and painfully aware that almost all of us cling to a folly or two, I appreciate Sally more than I did as a kid.

And I especially appreciate Dorothy Collins' performance now that I've heard two of the greatest singers alive, Barbara Cook and Vikki Carr, sing the part and sing it well.

If I were choosing today, I might prefer Sally if only because she has the greater emotional range to play. But I won't see the show again until it comes to L.A. in May; I respectfully reserve the right to change my mind.

Updated On: 12/10/11 at 05:43 PM

I'd choose Team Phyllis.

Phyllis. She's a survivor.

My only sympathy for Sally comes out of what she's become, not what she did to get there. I guess you could call it pity, not sympathy, actually. She's been a manipulative, ungrateful bitch her whole life and now she doesn't know any other way to get by.

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Sally.

Why not both? Syphilis!

Bump for awesomeness and a question: I've never understood the song Too Many Mornings. If most of the Sally/Ben relationship was in Sally's head, Why does Ben sing that song with her? Is Sally imagining the song as well? Thanks for any help!

In the original staging, there was no question that Ben was thinking of Young Sally, since she spent the entire number in his arms. It is she he thinks he has missed for 40 years, not the real, middle-aged grandmother Sally who is actually in the room. It's only confusing on a recording, where one only hears the two older characters.

In my post above praising Barbara Cook's and Vikki Carr's singing of Sally, I didn't mean to slight Dorothy Collins. After all is said and done (and I like Peters very much on the new recording), I think Collins had the perfect voice for the character. Less showy, perhaps, but no less lovely and perfect for plain-Jane Sally. The ease with which she sings both the book score and "Losing My Mind" is astounding.

And I've been thinking how generous Collins was in the original: traipsing around in that drab pink dress, carrying what little plot there is, looking like a dwarf next to statuesque, glamorous Alexis Smith all in red, and facing PalJoey's considerable ire! Collins should have been awarded a special Tony for theatrical courage!

Sally.

Sondheim has said "In Buddy's Eyes" is a lie, so it's clearly meant to be one.

When Sally (especially Bernadette's) sings "And all I ever dreamed I'd be. The best I ever thought of me. Is every minute there to see..... in Buddy's eyes" directly to Ben. I don't see how that can't be a lie.

Sondheim has said "In Buddy's Eyes" is a lie, so it's clearly meant to be one.

In addition to what henrik posted, I want to add that technically "In Buddy's Eyes" both is and is not a lie.

It IS a lie to the extent that Sally presents Buddy's love as the thing that makes her happy and gives her life meaning.

It IS NOT a lie to the extent that Buddy idolizes her as she describes it in the song.

Alas and like so many of us, Sally isn't grateful for Buddy's love; in fact she looks down on him for being such a chump (in her view). Buddy in turn has the same problem with Margie.

And while Sondheim is more aware than most writers, henrik is correct that the ultimate test is the work itself, not the author's intention. I think it's fine to look for clues in the latter, but one should avoid assuming the author's view is gospel.

I absolutely agree, henrik. Sally is lying when she says she is "lucky". Obviously. If she isn't lying about that there's no play.

But if she's lying about how Buddy treats her, then we end up with a play where it's virtually impossible to support either central couple. And that's not a very interesting play.

(Yes, I know some will say that's exactly what we find in FOLLIES as written, but I don't agree. I do want both couples to face facts and rebuild their marriages. I think Ben and Phyllis start down that road. Buddy and Sally's future is less clear to me at the end of the play, but we've discussed all that before.)

Actually, Gaveston, I don't think Sally is lying there. The lines are:

So life is ducky
And time goes flying
And I'm so lucky
I feel like crying,

I think we might be confusing "lying" with paradox. If this were a woman who was merely lying to paint her life as much happier than it is, she would never say such a thing.

Come to think of it, something similar may be happening with "life is slow but it seems exciting." Sally carefully doesn't say "is" exciting; she says "seems," and to the contrary she says it "is" slow; calling attention to appearance, decorum and expectations versus what is really in her heart.

Updated On: 1/11/12 at 06:16 PM

Gaveston, those lyrics are from Follies' Loveland sequence, not a realistic episode in the play.

Even if it were a song sung by Sally in "real time," the words don't have to be taken as literally as all that; that she seriously doesn't think about anything other than Ben. It is a torch song.

Yes, she's poisoned by regret, but I disagree, Peters' very interesting interpretation notwithstanding, that she is definitively so far removed from reality as to have no sense cerebrally of the good things in her life, of how she "should" appreciate them, and that she just can't. In fact the condition of neurotic self-contradiction that I contend she self-consciously inhabits seems to me to be so quintessentially Sondheimian, something he famously visits again and again in Follies and many other musicals (a theme he, more than any other lyricist, has perfected), that I don't think it's at all a reach to apply it to Sally.

And I never implied that she didn't feel a sense of deprivation about cars, cooks and diamonds. To the contrary, I talked about her marked sense of deprivation already. I simply think this is a woman who is aware of feeling deprived and feels a sense of guilt about it but is willing to take a now or never midlife risk - fueled by delusion - to go off with Ben.

And the lines don't say that she views her life as exciting (although I've already acknowledged that she may be saying just that, albeit insincerely or in a momentary self-delusion) but that life "seems" exciting. The line doesn't simply say "I feel lucky," it says "And I"m so lucky I feel like crying." Which are very different things, with the actual line clearly conveying irony and defeatism. The line is preceding it by "life is ducky and time goes flying," which are clearly not to be taken at face value. "Ducky" is a word rarely used without sardonic intent.

Subtext, paradox, kidding oneself, manipulation pf Ben are all involved in this brilliant song. I'm not even really sure if we are in disagreement about anything here (as is often the case).

Updated On: 1/11/12 at 07:20 PM