newjerseynewsroom.com

Sondheim and Goldman musical about a show biz reunion offers a memorable time

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BROADWAY REVIEW

A beautifully performed revival of “Follies” triumphantly swept into the Marquis Theater on Monday. Sophisticated in content and striking in craft, “Follies” remains unlike any other Broadway musical.

Frankly, it’s hard to decide whether to write a review for readers who have never experienced before this truly great musical by James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim or for longtime fans like me who have loved “Follies” ever since thrilling to the original back in 1971.

(As for anybody conversant with and yet somehow can’t appreciate “Follies” – well, to hell with you.)

Let’s try it both ways. Folks in a hurry who already know the show can skip the next several paragraphs.

Newbies should be aware upfront that “Follies” is essentially an unhappy musical. The seemingly gala title refers to the deceptive illusions that people harbor and the mistakes they make in their lives.

The title also references a Ziegfeld-type “Follies” at the core of Goldman’s rueful story, which studies a group of aging showgirls who gather in 1971 for a reunion at the crumbling theater where decades before they once reigned in all of their youth and beauty.

The lovely ghosts of their younger selves haunt the premises, particularly so those for four middle-aged characters: Sally (Bernadette Peters) who married Buddy (Danny Burstein) but still burns for Ben (Ron Raines) who wed Sally’s chum Phyllis (Jan Maxwell). Both marriages are rocky for different reasons.

As the nostalgic festivities wend deep into the night, we see how other figures among the various “Weismann Follies” alumni have dealt for better or worse with their lives and advancing years. Eventually the darkening tale climaxes in a surreal “Loveland” sequence where Sally, Buddy, Ben and Phyllis blaze through separate musical turns that illuminate their troubled circumstances.

Expect a multi-layered story heightened by the keen lyrics and evocative music of Sondheim’s superb score, which marvelously echoes the yesteryear songs of the 1910s-1940s eras to define the characters and to comment (in more ways than one) upon the glorious past versus a doubtful present. I was a high school kid when I first witnessed “Follies” and can attest that the older one grows, the stronger this musical resonates.

Directed very well by Eric Schaeffer, the Kennedy Center revival offers a deeply emotional interpretation of the show. Meaningful silences and much heartfelt acting distinguish the well-sung production, which is staged with 41 performers and a 28-member orchestra to do justice to the score. More on that later.

The text appears to be a mix of several relatively minor variations that Goldman devised for subsequent productions until his death in 1998. This two-act version includes an intermission after “Too Many Mornings,” retains “The Story of Lucy and Jessie” for Phyllis and omits the adagio dancing team of Vincent and Vanessa and their “Bolero d’Amour.”

As so often is the case with “Follies” revivals (okay, by now you realize we are talking insider baseball), the visuals somewhat disappoint. Designer Derek McLane wisely shrouds the bland Marquis auditorium in black demolition cloth and presents the requisite ruined proscenium. His upstage setting of metal walkways and brick is high rather than deep and although everything is colorfully lighted by Natasha Katz, the effect usually looks more gloomy than haunting. The contrasting “Loveland” segment neatly presents banks of pink and purple tulle roses that are further tinted by Katz for emotion.

Gregg Barnes, the costume designer, does far better with the 1971 characters than by their ghosts, whose presence needs to be rendered more ethereally than the handsome but hard-looking specters seen prowling these premises. The evening clothes worn by the living beings are insightful, however, and his extravagant creations for the “Loveland” showgirls might well please the Great Glorifier himself.

Always a tricky conceit to manage, the ghosts also trip up choreographer Warren Carlyle, who poses them nicely enough but cannot instill a gliding quality to their movement that makes them appear phantasmal. His crucial “Who’s That Woman?” number fails to merge the past and present forces effectively but, thanks to Terri White’s gusto in leading the ensemble, suffices as a sheer crowd-pleaser.