Sondheim’s ‘Follies’ on Broadway

There’s a classic Broadway musical that uses the homegrown conventions and style of a theatrical revue to tell of marital discord in a shifting time frame, against a backdrop of economic uncertainty. With a brilliant score but a problematic book, it’s seldom revived, but its influence can be seen in the work of dozens of composers and playwrights in the subsequent generation.

I’m referring of course to Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s Love Life (1948), the ghost of which hovers behind Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies like the phantom showgirls who haunt the Weismann Theater in their 1971 musical, now being revived on Broadway. As a Weill fan, I feel a twinge of regret each time Follies captures the headlines in yet another “rediscovery of a neglected masterpiece”: when will I ever see Love Life onstage? But I can’t begrudge the Sondheim Juggernaut overmuch this time, because the present revival, directed by Eric Schaeffer, is terrific — so good, in fact, that it’s compelled me to reassess the piece.

Divas: Bernadette Peters and Jan Maxwell

Follies is far stronger than I previously believed. It may even be as good as Sondheim cultists say it is — and in this town, that’s saying a lot.

In New York, it is for example risky, depending on the company one keeps, to point out that Sondheim’s outsized theatrical ambitions have been hampered in collaboration with writers who never can quite keep up: rare is the book to a Sondheim musical that’s anywhere near as effective as the score. James Goldman’s book for Follies is a case in point, and on my earlier encounters with this play, substantial effort went into “fixing” the book.

Lee Remick as Phyllis, Barbara Cook as Sally
Lincoln Center, 1985.
By chance, last night’s performance coincided with Miss Cook’s birthday.

The first strategy was to make me forget the book by force of distraction: the big-name concert at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in 1985 (which I saw only on TV) altered the original text, but who was really paying attention to it anyway? Barbara Cook, Lee Remick, Carol Burnett, Licia Albanese, Comden and Green, Elaine Stritch, Mandy Patinkin, George Hearn, Phyllis Newman — one after another — were a text unto themselves.

Blythe Danner as Phyllis, 2001

A second strategy is to beef up the book, by hiring performers better known for acting than for singing, as the Roundabout Theatre did for its revival, which I saw at the Belasco ten years ago. My revered Blythe Danner was Phyllis, the great Judith Ivey, Sally, and Polly Bergen, a fiery, memorable Carlotta. This actor-centric strategy might have worked better had the rest of the Roundabout production been less tatty. As it was, the leading ladies’ excellence in the book scenes was mitigated by the audience’s (and perhaps their own) anxiety: would they be able to sing the big numbers? The answer was yes, mostly, but we expended a lot of energy in getting to that point.

Phantoms: Ben (Ron Raines) and Sally (Bernadette Peters)
with their younger selves (Lora Lee Gayer, Nick Verina)

Now Schaeffer’s production bursts on the scene, after a successful run at Washington’s Kennedy Center. What tinkering with the book was done, I can’t say: I’m not the sort of Sondheim fanatic who has every variant committed to memory. But Goldman’s bitterly clinical, of-its-period dissection of the American marriage seems more plausible here than it did in my previous encounters — not least because it’s abundantly clear to modern audiences that Sally, the motor of the plot (such as it is), is a chronic depressive in desperate need of strong medication. Yeah, such a person really might wreak havoc this way.

Who’s that woman? It’s nearly everybody, actually.

Follies, stripped of its will-it-fly concerns, now takes its place next to Sondheim’s Company in its attitudes and Assassins in its form: a pastiche revue — with heavy debts to Weill. The show is better than I thought, and at last I was free to focus on the performances.

Which is as it should be. The story of a company reunion on the eve of a theater’s destruction, Follies is a series of star turns, and every number invites diva worship. For me, the revelation was Jan Maxwell, who has become a Broadway superstar while I was in France: this was my first glimpse of her, and she’s beyond fabulous, delivering a “Could I Leave You” quite unlike any I’ve ever heard.

So, anything exciting happen while I was in France?
Jan Maxwell as Phyllis

Often, singers take their cue from “Leave You”’s lilting tempo and Phyllis’ frosty elegance: the song is the most genteel slap in the face imaginable, and surely it was Blythe Danner’s unrivaled track record in this sort of character that got her hired by the Roundabout. Maxwell (and Schaeffer and music director James Moore) take her cue from the text, however: in her hands, “Leave You” is an explosion of pent-up rage, and if the waltz is still playing, it’s because Phyllis is so deep in her rut that, even now, she can’t climb out of it. She’s a prisoner of her own Park Avenue charms.

Bernadette Peters is up to something equally tricky in her interpretation of Sally, playing not only the character but also commenting on her own kewpie-doll image. Not everybody finds the result satisfying; I did, for the most part. In the proper context, Peters seems to be saying, a kewpie doll is adorable, but in Sally’s circumstances, that same doll is a nightmare. Even so, one has almost to admire Sally, who is gambling her own happiness — and that of three other people — on a pipe dream.

Song of Bernadette:
Let’s face it, most of us would turn out
just to see her read a gum wrapper.

Sally is ambitious, and so is Sondheim, so it’s no surprise that he’s written some of his most poignant music for the character. Surprisingly, Peters’ delivery of “Losing My Mind” was for this audience the least successful element of her performance. Instead of singing the song straight, as she has done in concert, she milked the emotions, and even she didn’t seem entirely comfortable doing so. I certainly wasn’t. The song doesn’t need this, and since it’s sung by a woman who is nearly catatonic in her depression (“stand[ing] in the middle of the floor, not going left, not going right”), it makes no sense when it’s hammed up.

But who can pass up an opportunity to see Bernadette, the last great star of Broadway musicals, to whom we refer by her first name, as if we know her personally — and in Sondheim, no less?

Over Here, “Still Here”: Elaine Paige as Carlotta

Londoners feel much the same about Elaine Paige, whose position in the West End is roughly comparable to Bernadette’s on Broadway. Paige’s New York appearances have been rare, and this one is curious: sure, Carlotta is a great part, but was nobody offering her a lead? Oh, well. Paige has great fun with the character comedy (and the American accent), and her “I’m Still Here” pleased the crowd, including me — even if it didn’t induce catharsis, as some other singers’ versions have done. (Polly Bergen made it seem she was making up her volcanic rendition on the spot.)

Ron Raines started out a bit stiffly, his line readings not quite ringing true — and yet, for Ben, this seemed about right. As the evening wore on, he grew in strength, with a pleasing baritone and conflicted character, aspiring to a tragic hero’s nobility and stature. Lovely as he sounded in “Too Many Mornings,” what struck me most was his desperate attempt to make things right: this Ben is a louse, yes, but not so much that he’s prepared to ruin Sally’s life — or to help her ruin it herself.

Can’t get enough “Too Many Mornings”:
Ron Raines and Bernadette Peters

Danny Burstein threw himself into Buddy’s character, moving from awkwardness to resignation to inarticulate fury: the dance breaks in “The Right Girl” never seemed so expressive as now, when the usually glib Buddy can find no more words. Really, if this production can boast a surprising asset, it’s the ability to evince sympathy for the leading men, rather than focusing entirely on the ladies. (Praise to Christian Delcroix, who convincingly portrayed Young Buddy, really capturing Burstein’s distinctive inflections.)

Burstein in “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues,”
with Jennifer Foote and Kiira Schmidt

Beyond the dynamics of the central couples, Follies is a collection of top-notch specialty numbers. Tremendous interest centered on mezzo Rosalind Elias, the Metropolitan Opera stalwart making her Broadway debut in the twilight of a long career.* Regal in a mulberry gown, in “One Last Kiss,” she sang circles around the soprano who played her younger self.

Elias, with David Sabin as impresario Dmitri Weismann

A vocal powerhouse who also dances up a storm, Terri White elicited whoops and roars from the crowd with “Who’s That Woman,” while Jane Houdyshell’s take-it-or-leave-it “Broadway Baby” proved absolutely winning: I took it, baby, I took it. I’ll never understand “Ah, Paris,” a number that, paradoxically, never goes anywhere, but Mary Beth Peil looked like a million bucks. Seriously, her picture must be sitting in the same attic as Bernadette Peters’, I think.

Schaeffer’s production laid on the atmosphere a bit thickly, with eerie sound effects pumped into the house prior to the show and during intermission, while extra showgirls haunted the stage incessantly. (Maybe this is the ideal show to see for Halloween?) But overall, his Follies won unprecedented admiration from me, and brought me a step or two closer to full-fledged Sondheim Worship.**

Now if only somebody would revive Love Life.

The sensational Terri White, center, leads the company
in “Who’s That Woman.”
Among White’s other roles is Chicago’s Mamma Morton,
once a showcase for my beloved Marcia Lewis.

*NOTE: Though Rosalind Elias and I have never met, she’s one of Teresa Stratas’ dearest friends. I’m not sure how it’s possible for us to keep crossing paths for so many years.

**Non-New Yorkers may not understand how deep in Sondheim’s thrall this city is. People wander the streets saying, “The peace of Steve be with you, brother,” and if you don’t respond correctly, they look at you in a puzzled way and say, “Are you not of the Body?”