Sally or Phyllis?- Page 3

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 8:16pm

henrik, I think we ARE agreeing. We're just using different language to say the same thing.

For every image of how Buddy romanticizes her, there is an equally strong image of a miserable life. To wit:

"I paint for umpteen hours."
(In context, this sounds like busy work, not a passion for fine art. The same is true of Sally's gardening.)

"I miss a lot living like a shut in."
(Why does she live like a shut-in? She tells us later in "Losing My Mind.")

"I haven't got cooks and cars and diamonds... (or) Paris fashions."
(Neither do I, but since I don't care about such things, I wouldn't mention them, especially not to my wealthy friends.)

And of course "I feel like crying."

So, yeah, the song is essentially a paradox ("I'm so lucky I feel like crying."), but the paradox is that between what she should feel as the "heroine" in her own Cinderella story and how she actually feels. Don't you think?

If you're saying that Sally is confessing happiness that she later denies in "Losing My Mind", I think you're overcomplicating the woman.

And as for the Loveland sequence, yes, the characters are putting on a show. But they are also addressing the audience directly and our culture's convention is that such addresses are when characters tell the truth (to the extent they understand it). Of course Ben tries to lie in his number, but can't pull it off; to the degree that business works, it does so because of the convention Ben has tried to break.

So, yeah, I think "Losing My Mind" is to be taken more literally than Sally's songs sung to Ben.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 10:38pm

I think we are absolutely in agreement. In no way is this song a confession of happiness - on the surface or otherwise - and I didn't for a second mean to imply that.

I totally agree that "the paradox is that between what she should feel as the "heroine" in her own Cinderella story and how she actually feels."

Just one caveat: I'm not so sure I agree that Sally is directly addressing the audience in The Follies sequence. Each of the Loveland solos is quite different and should be taken on its own terms. Ben's, as you said, is a total exploration/projection of an alter ego leading to breakdown. Buddy's a vaudeville commenting on his present lovelorn dilemma and not knowing what the hell to do about it. Phyllis's an anthem of gestalt and deconstruction exploring the woman she once was and the one she's become.

Sally's a heartbreaking effort to explore whether her passion is something she can safely and sanely trust or whether committing to it would be a way to complete a self-destruction already in progressive. I see it more as a soliloquy than a direct communication to the audience. Still, it is confessional and is very sincere. However, I don't think it necessarily indicates that she thinks about nothing other than Ben 24 7 literally.
Updated On: 1/11/12 at 10:38 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 1:48pm

I see it more as a soliloquy than a direct communication to the audience.

But, henrik, Elizabethan soliloquies have exactly the same convention as musical theater solos: during such asides, the audience may rest assured the character is telling the truth to the best of his/her ability.

We also have the even older tradition of characters' climactic revelations at the ends of plays. These too are by convention understood to be true.

Yes, the "soliloquies" in Loveland are highly stylized. I'm sure there were moments when Sally was so distracted by two small boys she forgot to think about Ben. But if the central characters (including Ben when he finally gets to "I don't love me") aren't telling the essential truths about themselves, what in the world are we doing so late in the evening?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 2:08pm

I agree Gaveston it's confessional and essentially true. I guess I was responding more to your citing the song as support for her inability to feel her own life or have any appreciation for it whatsoever. I'm not persuaded that the song, earnest as it is, establishes that. I think she does feel her own life to the core, has a sense of what's essentially in it, what should be cause for gratitude, and deeply regrets - is poisoned by it as you said - that she can't embrace what she has and resolutely longs for what she doesn't.

But, in this, I think we essentially agree. Our disputes, as we've both noted, seem to come down to the way we are expressing ourselves.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 2:09pm

I think they're all telling the truth in Loveland. I think they have to be. Of course Ben isn't telling the truth when his folly begins, but he can't keep up the lie, which leads to his breakdown.

This is an interesting thread, but I don't know why we have to choose one of the main female characters at the expense of the other. I mean, I guess I do prefer Phyllis, but it's not like I'm so team-Phyllis that I have to disparage the character of Sally for it.

What I've always found most compelling about Phyllis is that, of the main four, she's the one who has gone through the most drastic changes in the preceding thirty years, so much so that she's nearly unrecognizable from who she was.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 8:22pm

PRS, despite paljoey's strong feelings, I never took the "Sally or Phyllis" question all that literally. Phyllis is funnier and smarter, so she's more fun. She also seems to genuinely love her husband if only he will let her, so it's easier to root for Phyllis than for Sally, who is willing to ruin any number of lives as she chases a folly from her youth.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 8:43pm

Just to be clear, I wasn't condemning PalJoey with that comment, although rereading my comment and then rereading the beginning of the thread could certainly give that impression. Rest assured, though. I wasn't condemning anyone. I just think it's a fallacy to suggest one should choose one or the other. Phyllis can't exist without Sally and vice versa.

ETA - I wanted to touch back to an older comment that devion.t made

Sally demands our sympathy while Phyllis earns it.

I really like this comment, however, I'd append it to say that Bernadette Peters's Sally demands on our sympathy. I don't think it's something inherent in the character.


Updated On: 1/12/12 at 08:43 PM

[BroadwayFan12]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 9:07pm

I don't think Sally is hurting anyone intentionally. I see her as so lost in her own delusion that she's completely oblivious. I'm always drawn to characters who are broken, so my heart naturally goes out to Sally.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 11:10pm

I agree BroadwayFan. I don't think Sally is intentionally hurting anyone, but as paljoey points out, she is so self-absorbed, she threatens to leave a lot of collateral damage in her wake. But if we can't feel compassion for self-deluded (Oedipus) and self-absorbed (Hamlet) characters, we had better stay home from the theater.

PRS, I didn't think you were knocking paljoey. I'm sorry if my reply seemed to set up you two as adversaries.

The fact is: everything paljoey wrote about Sally is true. It's a matter of personal choice (life experiences, etc.) whether one can care about her anyway. As I implied above, I didn't care so much when I was 17 (at least not until she got to "Losing My Mind"); I'm a lot more forgiving of a lot things now.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 11:17pm

No worries. Your comment just made me worry I might get misconstrued.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 1:02pm

I can only blame early onset senility and the fact that I haven't seen the show in ten years. (I saw the original twice and then two productions in the 1990s: four performances over 40 years.)

Otherwise I would have noted that Ben's "Too Many Mornings" is presented as a counterpart to "In Buddy's Eyes". In both songs, the character tells bits of truths, but the overall statement of each song is a lie.

"The Ben I'll never be--who remembers him?" Ben does, and that's his problem.