Follies

I've been super quiet for a little while, but not because of laziness. I actually (gasp) went two weeks without seeing anything new! Unexpectedly, the world has continued to turn on its axis. Happily, I have a few shows to chat about before I head off on vacation in a week!

The first (and it's a biggie) is Follies as seen at the Kennedy Center in DC. Oh, Sondheim. The man just composes such good music that he's set the bar too high for anyone else to achieve. I have learned the hard way in the past, that you absolutely cannot listen to Sondheim on the way to another musical. IT just spoils the whole experience. And Follies showcases him at his best. Musically. Is it the best Sondheim show? Well...no. But hold on, I'll get back to that.

Who do I love as much as Stephen Sondheim? Bernadette Peters. But this is a trickier love affair. I tumbled head over heels for her live recordings, but it wasn't until she was in Annie Get Your Gun that I saw her live. And man, that show's overrated. I didn't see her again until Gypsy, and while there are vastly divided opinions on whether she was amazing or terrible as Mama Rose, I don't think anyone would argue that she was great at the performance I caught. She was rather ill, and while I appreciated that she's a trouper and gave it her all, her all sounded as though she had strangled it through some terribly full sinuses. I remember watching her "Some People" and thinking, "Ohhhhh, she might not make it through this." And then there were two more hours of show. Happily, when I caught her in A Little Night Music, she was perfection. The production, however, was a dreary mess. And Elaine Stritch (god love her) had about a third of her lines down. But I still love her even if I haven't walked away from the productions I've seen her in loving THEM.

So here she is as Sally Plummer, the former showgirl in love with the one that got away. Sally is married to Buddy, but she loves Ben. Ben is married to Phyllis, but he doesn't really love anyone. Buddy remains ever faithful to Sally. Phyllis is a stone cold bitch.

At the reunion for the former Weissman Follies girls, Sally intends to share her true feelings with Ben. That's the central focus of the show (in so much as it can be said to have a focus). The thing is: Sally's kind of deluded and totally self-involved. She projects a tenderness that doesn't mesh with her dismal treatment of the people around her. Her counterpart, Phyllis, is at least honest in her nastiness. If anything, she's probably the kinder of the two. Ah duality. Theme one.

But what does that mean for Bernadette? It means that I left conflicted, AGAIN! I kind of wanted to slap her by the end of the show, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that what that meant was that she made me care. I cared enough to be angry. And I had a very, very vivid portrait of who this woman was. I didn't LIKE her, but why should that matter? Maybe the real force of the performance came from the fact that I felt like I should but knew that I couldn't. With two days since the show, I'm more and more convinced that her performance was actually spot on. I certainly keep thinking about it.

About those other main characters: I don't know who Ron Raines is, but he was fantastic as Ben. He sings one of my favorite songs from the show, "The Road You Didn't Take" with authority and appropriate pathos while never letting his cool demeanor actually slip. Jan Maxwell was glorious as Phyllis. In some ways, it seems like the easiest of the main roles--she gets the most cutting lines, has the funniest songs, and for the most part just has to look regal and bitchy, but she found this well of warmth to pull from that a) I didn't know she had in her and b) was unexpected and unexpectedly moving. Danny Burstein took a little while to draw me in as Buddy, but by the beginning of the second act, I was fully hooked. His song, "Buddy's Blues," was one of the more magical moments of the night.

And what about that second act? Holy hell, it was brilliant. Not to work backwards or anything (by which I mean that's exactly what I'm going to do), but the second act of this show has one of the most abrupt tonal shifts in anything ever. Here we are cruising along with some standard storytelling and then BAM: five numbers are presented vaudeville style to show us the inner life of the characters. The shift to this section, "Loveland," is jaw-dropping. I actually gasped at a set change. I'm not that kind of a person! But it was so beautiful and so surprising that I just couldn't control my response. And as each of those numbers came, one after the other, the delivery and staging was exceptional and made the most stylistic touches feel deeply personal and surprisingly real. Okay, one quibble: someone should find better ways to disguise Jan Maxwell's lack of dance prowess. We DO actually notice when there are five people on stage and only four leave the ground when they "jump."

What's so shocking about the shift to the vaudeville section isn't just the style change. It's that we suddenly are confronted with these four lost souls in intense close-up. Act 1 is the total opposite of that. Dozens of characters from the Follies past stroll the stage. A bunch of the old gals offer up one-off numbers that are very, very vaguely tied into the plot (if at all). Here's one of the joys of Follies: seeing older performers who might not be doing as much these days get a shot at popping up, delivering a stunning number, basking in adoration, and then making room for another.Our four main characters (and versions of their younger selves) wander in and out of that action, but it's like a theatrical version of a Robert Altman movie. The story is happening in and around the action. The second act is when it becomes the action. All of the action. I feel like there's a laser-sharp one act musical in this show that no one will ever see because all of the extra material in Act 1 is such an intense joy. But Act 2...there's just no way to make that match what came before. So it will always be this great, unwieldy, uneven show. It can't be perfect, though. There's almost too much brilliant material standing in its way.

But how are those old gals? Terri White, who I became mildly obsessed with after finding her the only reason to see Finian's Rainbow, tore the roof off the place with "Who's That Woman." Elaine Paige, well...Elaine Paige is wonderful. In other things. Here she gives a really, truly bizarre version of "I'm Still Here" that is a glorious showcase for her voice but makes not a single lick of sense. The 82-year-old Rosalind Elias busted out a stunning operatic "One More Kiss" that was deeply lovely. And Linda Lavin...holy crap. I've seen this woman on stage before, and she's amazing. I didn't know how phenomenal her voice was. Her "Broadway Baby" was legitimately a highlight of the year. So, so, so good.

In the end, Follies is a big, old, messy show being given a first rate production. With a 40-person cast and 28 musicians, it sounds so rich and full, and it's a delight from beginning to end, no matter how awkward and clumsy the overall ride is. It's transferring to Broadway this summer. I don't have tickets yet, but that's only because they aren't on sale yet.