Follies

''Follies'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman.

The plot centers on a crumbling Broadway theater, now scheduled for demolition, previously home to a musical revue (based on the ''Ziegfeld Follies''). The evening follows a reunion of the Weismann Girls who performed during the interwar period. Several of the former showgirls perform their old numbers, often accompanied by the ghosts of their younger selves. The score offers a pastiche of 1920s and 1930s musical styles, evoking a nostalgic tone.

The original Broadway production, directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett, with choreography by Bennett, opened April 4, 1971. The musical was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won seven at the 26th Tony Awards. The original production, among the most costly on Broadway, ran for over 500 performances but ultimately lost its entire investment. The musical has had a number of major revivals, and several of its songs have become standards, including "Broadway Baby", " I'm Still Here", "Too Many Mornings", " Could I Leave You?", and " Losing My Mind".

Background

After the failure of '' Do I Hear a Waltz?'' (1965), for which he had written the lyrics to Richard Rodgers's music, Stephen Sondheim decided that he would henceforth work only on projects where he could write both the music and lyrics himself. He asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical. Inspired by a ''New York Times'' article about a gathering of former Ziegfeld Girls, they decided upon a story about ex- showgirls.Chapin, pp. xxii–xxvi, 7

Originally titled ''The Girls Upstairs'', the musical was to be produced by David Merrick and Leland Hayward in late 1967, but the plans ultimately fell through, and Stuart Ostrow became the producer, with Joseph Hardy as director. These plans also did not work out, and finally Harold Prince, who had worked previously with Sondheim, became the producer and director. He had agreed to work on ''The Girls Upstairs'' if Sondheim agreed to work on ''Company''; Michael Bennett, the young choreographer of ''Company'', was also brought onto the project. It was Prince who changed the title to ''Follies''; he was "intrigued by the psychology of a reunion of old chorus dancers and loved the play on the word 'follies.

Plot

In 1971, on the soon-to-be-demolished stage of the Weismann Theatre, a reunion is being held to honor the Weismann's ''Follies'' shows past and the beautiful chorus girls who performed there every year between the two world wars. The once resplendent theater is now little but planks and scaffolding ("Prologue"/"Overture"). As the ghosts of the young showgirls slowly drift through the theater, a majordomo enters with his entourage of waiters and waitresses. They pass through the spectral showgirls without seeing them.

Sally Durant Plummer, "blond, petite, sweet-faced" and at 49 "still remarkably like the girl she was thirty years ago",Sondheim, Stephen, and Goldman, Jame
"Act 1"
''Follies''. Theatre Communications Group, 2001, , pp. 2-3, 71 a former Weismann girl, is the first guest to arrive, and her ghostly youthful counterpart moves towards her. Phyllis Rogers Stone, a stylish and elegant woman, arrives with her husband Ben, a renowned philanthropist and politician. As their younger counterparts approach them, Phyllis comments to Ben about their past. He feigns a lack of interest; there is an underlying tension in their relationship. As more guests arrive, Sally's husband, Buddy, enters. He is a salesman, in his early 50s, appealing and lively, whose smiles cover inner disappointment.

Finally, Weismann enters to greet his guests. Roscoe, the old master of ceremonies, introduces the former showgirls ("Beautiful Girls"). Former Weismann performers at the reunion include Max and Stella Deems, who lost their radio jobs and became store owners in Miami; Solange La Fitte, a coquette, who is vibrant and flirtatious even at 66; Hattie Walker, who has outlived five younger husbands; Vincent and Vanessa, former dancers who now own an Arthur Murray franchise; Heidi Schiller, for whom Franz Lehár once wrote a waltz ("or was it Oscar Straus?" Facts never interest her; what matters is the song!); and Carlotta Campion, a film star who has embraced life and benefited from every experience.

As the guests reminisce, the stories of Ben, Phyllis, Buddy, and Sally unfold. Phyllis and Sally were roommates while in the Follies, and Ben and Buddy were best friends at school in New York. When Sally sees Ben, her former lover, she greets him self-consciously ("Don't Look at Me"). Buddy and Phyllis join their spouses and the foursome reminisces about the old days of their courtship and the theater, their memories vividly coming to life in the apparitions of their young counterparts ("Waiting For The Girls Upstairs"). Each of the four is shaken at the realization of how life has changed them. Elsewhere, Willy Wheeler (portly, in his sixties) cartwheels for a photographer. Emily and Theodore Whitman, ex-vaudevillians in their seventies, perform an old routine ("The Rain on the Roof"). Solange proves she is still fashionable at what she claims is 66 ("Ah, Paris!"), and Hattie Walker performs her old showstopping number ("Broadway Baby").

Buddy warns Phyllis that Sally is still in love with Ben, and she is shaken by how the past threatens to repeat itself. Sally is awed by Ben's apparently glamorous life, but Ben wonders if he made the right choices and considers how things might have been ("The Road You Didn't Take"). Sally tells Ben how her days have been spent with Buddy, trying to convince him (and herself) that she is happily married. ("In Buddy's Eyes"). However, it is clear that Sally is still in love with Ben – even though their affair ended badly when Ben decided to marry Phyllis. She shakes loose from the memory and begins to dance with Ben, who is touched by the memory of the Sally he once cast aside.

Phyllis interrupts this tender moment and has a biting encounter with Sally. Before she has a chance to really let loose, they are both called on to participate in another performance – Stella Deems gets Sally, Phyllis, Emily, Hattie, and some others to perform an old number ("Who's That Woman?"), as they are mirrored by their younger selves. Afterward, Phyllis and Ben angrily discuss their lives and relationship, which has become numb and emotionless. Sally is bitter, having never been happy with Buddy, although he has always adored her. She accuses him of having affairs while he is on the road, and he admits he has a steady girlfriend, Margie, in another town, but always returns home. Carlotta amuses a throng of admirers with a tale of how her dramatic solo was cut from the Follies because the audience found it humorous, transforming it as she sings it into an anthem-like toast to her own hard-won survival (" I'm Still Here").

Ben confides to Sally that his life is empty. She yearns for him to hold her, but young Sally slips between them and the three move together ("Too Many Mornings"). Ben, caught in the passion of memories, kisses Sally as Buddy watches from the shadows. Sally thinks this is a sign that the two will finally get married, and Ben is about to protest until Sally interrupts him with a kiss and runs off to gather her things, thinking that the two will leave together. Buddy leaves the shadows furious, and fantasizes about the girl he should have married, Margie, who loves him and makes him feel like "a somebody", but bitterly concludes he does not love her back ("The Right Girl"). He tells Sally that he's done, but she is lost in a fantasy world and tells him that Ben has asked her to marry him. Buddy tells her she must be either crazy or drunk, but he's already supported Sally through rehab clinics and mental hospitals and cannot take any more. Ben drunkenly propositions Carlotta, with whom he once had a fling, but she has a young lover and coolly turns him down. Heidi Schiller, joined by her younger counterpart, performs "One More Kiss", her aged voice a stark contrast to the sparkling coloratura of her younger self. Phyllis kisses a waiter and confesses to him that she had always wanted a son. She then tells Ben that their marriage can't continue the way it has been. Ben replies by saying that he wants a divorce, and Phyllis assumes the request is due to his love for Sally. Ben denies this, but still wants Phyllis out of his life. Angry and hurt, Phyllis considers whether to grant his request (" Could I Leave You?").

Phyllis begins wondering at her younger self, who worked so hard to become the socialite that Ben needed. Ben yells at his younger self for not appreciating all the work that Phyllis did. Both Buddys enter to confront the Bens about how they stole Sally. Sally and her younger self enter and Ben firmly tells Sally that he never loved her. All the voices begin speaking and yelling at each other. Suddenly, at the peak of madness and confusion, the couples are engulfed by their follies, which transform the rundown theater into a fantastical "Loveland", an extravaganza even more grand and opulent than the gaudiest Weismann confection: "the place where lovers are always young and beautiful, and everyone lives only for love"."Synopsis"
mtishows.com. Retrieved August 30, 2010. Sally, Phyllis, Ben, and Buddy show their "real and emotional lives" in "a sort of group nervous breakdown".

What follows is a series of musical numbers performed by the principal characters, each exploring their biggest desires. The two younger couples sing in a counterpoint of their hopes for the future ("You're Gonna Love Tomorrow/Love Will See Us Through"). Buddy then appears, dressed in "plaid baggy pants, garish jacket, and a shiny derby hat", and performs a high-energy vaudeville routine depicting how he is caught between his love for Sally and Margie's love for him ("The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues"). Sally appears next, dressed as a torch singer, singing of her passion for Ben from the past - and her obsession with him now (" Losing My Mind"). In a jazzy dance number, accompanied by a squadron of chorus boys, Phyllis reflects on the two sides of her personality, one naive and passionate and the other jaded and sophisticated and her desire to combine them ("The Story of Lucy and Jessie"). Resplendent in top hat and tails, Ben begins to offer his devil-may-care philosophy ("Live, Laugh, Love"), but stumbles and anxiously calls to the conductor for the lyrics, as he frantically tries to keep going. Ben becomes frenzied, while the dancing ensemble continues as if nothing was wrong. Amidst a deafening discord, Ben screams at all the figures from his past and collapses as he cries out for Phyllis.

"Loveland" has dissolved back into the reality of the crumbling and half-demolished theater; dawn is approaching. Ben admits to Phyllis his admiration for her, and Phyllis shushes him and helps Ben regain his dignity before they leave. After exiting, Buddy escorts the emotionally devastated Sally back to their hotel with the promise to work things out later. Their ghostly younger selves appear, watching them go. The younger Ben and Buddy softly call to their "girls upstairs", and the Follies end.

Songs

Songs cut before the Broadway premiere include "All Things Bright and Beautiful" (used in the prologue), "Can That Boy Foxtrot!", "Who Could Be Blue?" / "Little White House", "It Wasn't Meant to Happen", "Pleasant Little Kingdom", "That Old Piano Roll Rag", "The World's Full of Girls", "Bring On The Girls", and "Uptown Downtown".

The song list as initially produced on Broadway in 1971:

* "Prologue" – Orchestra
* "Overture" – Orchestra
* "Beautiful Girls" – Roscoe and Company
* "Don't Look at Me" – Sally and Ben
* "Waiting for the Girls Upstairs" – Ben, Sally, Phyllis and Buddy, Young Ben, Young Sally, Young Phyllis and Young Buddy
* "Montage" ("Rain on the Roof"/"Ah, Paris!"/"") – Emily, Theodore, Solange, and Hattie
* "The Road You Didn't Take" – Ben
* "Bolero d'Amour" – Danced by Vincent and Vanessa ≠≠
* "In Buddy's Eyes" – Sally
* "Who's That Woman?" – Stella and Company
* " I'm Still Here" – Carlotta
* "Too Many Mornings" – Ben and Sally
* "The Right Girl" – Buddy
* "One More Kiss" – Heidi and Young Heidi
* " Could I Leave You?" – Phyllis
* "Loveland" – Company
* "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow" / "Love Will See Us Through" – Young Ben, Young Sally, Young Phyllis and Young Buddy
* "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" – Buddy, "Margie", "Sally"
* " Losing My Mind" – Sally
* "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" – Phyllis and backup male dancers ≠
* "Live, Laugh, Love" – Ben and Company
* "Chaos" – Ben and Company
* "Finale" – Young Buddy and Young Ben

≠ Some productions substitute "Ah, but Underneath" when the actress portraying Phyllis is not primarily a dancer.
≠≠ Omitted from some productions

The musical numbers "Ah, but Underneath" (replacing "The Story of Lucy and Jessie"), "Country House" (replacing "The Road You Didn't Take"), "Make the Most of Your Music" (replacing "Live, Laugh, Love"), "Social Dancing", and an alternate version of "Loveland" have been incorporated across various productions.

Analysis

Hal Prince said: "''Follies'' examines obsessive behavior, neurosis and self-indulgence more microscopically than anything I know of." Bernadette Peters quoted Sondheim on the character of "Sally": "He said early on that allyis off-balance, to put it mildly. He thinks she's very neurotic, and she is very neurotic, so he said to me 'Congratulations. She's crazy. Martin Gottfried wrote: "The concept behind ''Follies'' is theatre nostalgia, representing the rose-colored glasses through which we face the fact of age ... the show is conceived in ghostliness. At its very start, ghosts of Follies showgirls stalk the stage, mythic giants in winged, feathered, black and white opulence. Similarly, ghosts of the Twenties shows slip through the evening as the characters try desperately to regain their youth through re-creations of their performances and inane theatre sentiments of their past."

Joanne Gordon, author and chair and artistic director, Theatre, at California State University, Long Beach, wrote "''Follies'' is in part an affectionate look at the American musical theatre between the two World Wars and provides Sondheim with an opportunity to use the traditional conventions of the genre to reveal the hollowness and falsity of his characters' dreams and illusions. The emotional high generated by the reunion of the Follies girls ultimately gives way to anger, disappointment, and weary resignation to reality." ''Follies'' contains two scores: the Follies pastiche numbers and the book numbers.Follies' analysis and summary"
sondheim.com. Retrieved August 29, 2010. Some of the Follies numbers imitate the style of particular composers of the early 20th century: " Losing My Mind" is in the style of a George Gershwin ballad " The Man I Love". Sondheim noted that the song "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" is "another generic pastiche: vaudeville music for chases and low comics, but with a patter lyric... I tried to give it the sardonic knowingness of Lorenz Hart or Frank Loesser."

"Loveland", the final musical sequence, (that "consumed the last half-hour of the original" productionKirkeby, Marc (released April 1971). "Liner notes to original Broadway cast recording". ''Follies'' (p. 14). D booklet Capitol Records, 1971. Angel Records, 1992. Middlesex. EMI Records, Ltd.) is akin to an imaginary 1941 ''Ziegfeld Follies'' sequence, with Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy performing "like comics and torch singers from a Broadway of yore." "Loveland" features a string of vaudeville-style numbers, reflecting the leading characters' emotional problems, before returning to the theater for the end of the reunion party. The four characters are "whisked into a dream show in which each acts out his or her own principal 'folly.

Versions

Goldman continued to revise the book of the musical right up to his death, which occurred shortly before the 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse production. Sondheim, too, has added and removed songs that he judged to be problematic in various productions. Ted Chapin, who worked on the original 1971 production and wrote a book about the process in 2003, explains: "Today, ''Follies'' is rarely performed twice in exactly the same version. James Goldman's widow made the observation that the show has morphed throughout its entire life ... The London production had new songs and dialogue. The Paper Mill Playhouse production used some elements from London but stayed close to the original. The 2001 Roundabout Broadway revival, the first major production following Goldman's death in 1998, was again a combination of previous versions."

Major changes were made for the original production in London, which attempted to establish a lighter tone and favored a happier ending than the original Broadway production. According to Joanne Gordon, "When ''Follies'' opened in London ... it had an entirely different, and significantly more optimistic, tone. Goldman's revised book offered some small improvements over the original."

According to Sondheim, producer Cameron Mackintosh asked for changes for the 1987 London production. "I was reluctantly happy to comply, my only serious balk being at his request that I cut "The Road You Didn't Take" ... I saw no reason not to try new things, knowing we could always revert to the original (which we eventually did). The net result was four new songs ... For reasons which I've forgotten, I rewrote "Loveland" for the London production. There were only four showgirls in this version, and each one carried a shepherd's crook with a letter of the alphabet on it."

The musical was written in one act, and the original director, Prince, did not want an intermission, while the co-director, Bennett, wanted two acts. It originally was performed in one act. The 1987 West End, 2005 Barrington Stage Company, the 2001 Broadway revival and Kennedy Center 2011 productions were performed in two acts. However, the August 23, 2011 Broadway preview performance was performed without an intermission. By the time the 2011 Broadway revival opened, it was performed with an intermission in two acts. The 2017 National Theatre production was performed without an interval, along with largely returning to the 1971 book. As with previous productions, however, the production's book was unique to this iteration as well.

Productions

1971 original Broadway

''Follies'' had its pre-Broadway tryout at the Colonial Theatre, Boston, from February 20 through March 20, 1971.

''Follies'' premiered on Broadway on April 4, 1971, at the Winter Garden Theatre. It was directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett, with choreography by Bennett, scenic design by Boris Aronson, costumes by Florence Klotz, and lighting by Tharon Musser