re: Follies 1987 London Production

[devonian.t]

It seems to me more realistic for the 2 couples to have developed a quiet dissatisfaction/ loathing for each other than to be in all out war from the start.

I definitely remember Diana Rigg dancing Who's That Woman Once- and she moved very elegantly in Ah But Underneath.

[Smaxie]

"Ah, But Underneath" was used at Paper Mill not because Dee Hoty couldn't dance (she can), but because the creative team felt that in context, there's more of a payoff with "Ah, But Underneath" than with "Lucy & Jessie". Now, "Lucy & Jessie" is a brilliant song, no question. But it has a serpentine lyric that flies by, followed by some terrific hot-cha dance music (courtesy of John Berkman), with the lyric having ended about five minutes earlier. In the original production, the choreography is sensational ... and then, for all its dazzlement, it just ends.

I didn't see the London production, but I understand that the "Ah, But Underneath" staging had all sorts of tricks with Diana Rigg disappearing and reappearing in different spots on the stage. At Paper Mill, "Ah, But Underneath" was staged in the style of a Jack Cole number - leading lady pursued by chorus boys with Phyllis stripping off layers (both psychologically and physically), and finally, when she got down to the payoff, disappearing altogether.

While I missed "Lucy & Jessie," I think "Ah, But Underneath" accomplished a few notable things dramatically: it suggested that Phyllis feels that there's nothing to her below the surface, ending the number with a dramatic payoff and a clear point of view; her dancing with the chorus boys reminds us of the scene we witnessed earlier at the party when she has a fling with the young waiter, Kevin or the "boy half your age in the grass" that she cites in "Could I Leave You"; and it does all this in the guise of a period "Follies" style, a strip tease.

[PalJoey]

As close as you'll ever get to the original: 16mm slient film dubbed from the soundboard:


Who's That Woman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhQeVQ6677A


The Right Girl

http://youtu.be/CmAttoJ_kmY

[sondheimboy2]

I view the original Broadway and the London versions of "Follies" rather like having your favorite candy bar available in dark and milk chocolate.

But I prefer the dark.

[Scripps2]

The difference between the footage of the London Who's That Woman and the Broadway is definitely the difference between milk and plain chocolate.

I can remember watching the film of Oklahoma on TV with my father and him saying how good Gene Nelson must have been in Follies, but I had no idea - that footage is extraordinary. It is much more of a dance number than I expected, and both confirms and illustrates the comments I've read in various books about the staging.

[PalJoey]

I put the Follies in Miniature video back on YouSendIt. PM me for the link.

[Amalia Balash]

Wow. Thank you, PalJoey, for those YouTubes of the original Broadway production. If they can take my breath away in YouTube quality, I cannot imagine how amazing they would have been live. Just wow.

[PalJoey]

Follies fans PM me. The link will be up for 7 days.

[nobodyhome]

"As close as you'll ever get to the original: 16mm slient film dubbed from the soundboard:


Who's That Woman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhQeVQ6677A


The Right Girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFxygAHcNGM"

Maybe. Maybe not.

[PalJoey]

X-posted from a PM discussion with Scripps2 of the videos from the original:

What you're noticing about the ghost of Ethel Shutta and the difference in Who's That Woman is the genius of Michael Bennett's staging, which was even more defining to that production than Hal Prince's work.

The reason no production has equaled the original isn't the script or the score or the sets of the costumes. It is the absence of Michael Bennett's contribution.

[Scripps2]

And to complement the above post, here is what I PM'd to PalJoey after watching the videos...

Those 13 minutes went by very quickly - so many brief glimpses of greatness in there! I particularly appreciated seeing the way the guests' characters were established as they arrived at the party, Ethel Shutta's dance steps during B'way Baby and the ghost with the feather head-dress hovering in the background, and again a lot of the dance steps in Who's That Woman were similar to those in the London production but the feel of the piece was very different. It was also particularly interesting to get a feel for the Loveland sequence and the way this differed from the London production. Wonderful to see Dorothy Collins sing LMM - she had a decent dress to wear and looked fantastic, and also to see Alexis Smith dancing in L&J. Great to catch a shot of Bolero D'Amour as well.

You may also have seen me post about the Manchester production that pre-dated the London production by a couple of years, and which was Follies' European premiere. It sticks in my mind far more vividly than the London production: although on a much smaller scale and budget than the Broadway production, it used the original Broadway script and score (it even kept Bolero D'Amour which managed to be both beautiful and frightening, and which I don't think I've seen in any production since) and now I see how much its physical production tried to emulate the Broadway production as well.

[PalJoey]

I think that for Michael it was in many ways a ghost story--not a conventional one, but one that he could take in different directions.

First, he could take the long-held theatrical belief that old theaters have ghosts, and show in dance and movement what they would look like--in a way that ghosts had never been depicted before: 7-foot-tall showgirls moving in slow motion, once-colorful costumes rendered only in shades of gray, ghost of ourselves when we were young and optimistic and not-yet-jaded, trailing behind the middle-aged characters or looming over them.

Then he could show people who were so haunted by the ghosts of themselves that they were stuck in the past: that was how he stages the young Sally, Ben, Phyllis and Buddy bursting through, shockingly, into the present-day scenes.

And, finally, in Loveland (and least successfully), he could show how those ghosts of who we were then could help us understand who we are now and who we can still become.

But no other director since has had the Bennettian imagination to tell that kind of ghost story, especially the idiot who directed and botched the Roundabout production.

[laura is broadway]

Those videos are great!

[laura is broadway]

By the way, what is this soundboard that everybody speaks of?

[BNN]

There are, to my knowledge, 3 recordings made of Follies done in the theatre, one of them being a soundboard recording that is probably the best quality out of all of them. It's speculated that it was recorded under Sondheim's wishes in case the show wasn't recorded. It's from March 26th, 1971.

One of the others is from the tryout in Boston, and the other is from New York but has Helen Blount on for Ethel Shutta and has Marti Rolph singing Too Many Mornings for some unexplained reason. There are more recordings documented, but I don't think they've turned up yet.

Documented Recordings: http://lesson8.googlepages.com/follies

[nobodyhome]

As far as I can tell, Marti Rolph only sings part of "Too Many Mornings" in the December 1971 performance. It seems pretty likely, given that Collins sounds slightly rough in a few places, that Collins was under the weather but went on anyway and that's why Rolph sings the high, exposed part of the song. It was a strange solution to the problem.

My guess is that the understudy (Terry Saunders at that time) had been deemed not really adequate (though later she came back as the Phyllis understudy).

Or perhaps Saunders was also sick and so Collins had to go on.

[LadyRosecoe]

It was once said in an interview that Dorothy had asthma and would rarely have some difficulties in getting through the song and Rolph would cover in the event of that happening. However, I was unaware of this recording that captured that happening...

[LadyRosecoe]

[RobertArmin] "Interesting that Barbara Cook was seriously considered for Sally, too. Of course, she did get to play the role a decade later at Lincoln Center. But Dorothy Collins was heartbreaking in the original."

[TedChapin] "And a wonderful person, great with the cast. And who knew she had asthma and had to use an inhaler often during the run. Marti Rolph told me some nights she had to sing Dorothy's part in “Too Many Mornings” when She (Dorothy) didn’t have the breath."

Here is the full interview:
http://lettersfromtheinside.com/Chapin.htm

[PalJoey]

Did Marti sing the whom thing? or just the high notes at the end? ("If there's time / To look up and see / Sally standing at the door / Sally moving to the bed...")

[BNN]

Dorothy Collins says the "If you don't kiss me Ben..." line and then Marti Rolph proceeds to sing the entire song.

[PalJoey]

With Dorothy lipsynching?!?

I saw it 5 times--I must have seen that happen at least once, no?

The magic was never broken.

[BNN]

I would assume Dorothy would just mirror or mimic Marti's movements, the one picture I've seen of the number shows Ben holding Young Sally with Sally holding onto Young Sally. It seems like a strange idea but I guess it's better than having Dorothy struggle through the song.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

To me, it always WAS a ghost story. And while I don't disagree with you about Michael Bennett, the later scripts downplay the supernatural aspect as well.

Now, if only I could get my hands on those other four audios of the OBC.

[PalJoey]

But the genius of Michael was that he could have fun making it a spooky ghost story--but genuinely, shivers-up-the-spine spooky--AND at the same time make it a sophisticated musical drama AND at the same time put in razzle-dazzle musical-comedy dance elements to make it fun in an old-fashioned way.

Aside from him, no one can do all those things at the same time.

No one. And I mean NO ONE.

He knew how to create what the French call a coup de theatre.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Oui.

[BigFatBlonde]

I'm in the minority here.. but believe the original book to FOLLIES is one of the best books ever written for a musical.

There is something poetic in its sparseness. It is almost Chekhovian in the way the emotions rumble underneath what is NOT being overtly talked about.

When the London production removed all that..the emotional wallop was diminished.

The London production sadly pulled its punches.