Review: Follies

I caught Follies at the Wednesday night invited dress. It was truly a fabulous night that will stick in my memory for a long, long time. Seeing so many legendary performers onstage together, in a piece that celebrates what their lives have been lived for, was just an incredible experience, and I was honored just to be there. I think that Stephen Sonheim is really like the Shakespeare of musical theater, and this piece, his love letter to the form and it's players, is one of his finest works. As you've already read and heard everywhere, Donna Murphy and Victoria Clark were pretty much perfect - I'm just not poetic enough to describe how lovingly their performances were rendered. Magnificent comes to mind. The other performances were varied - Victor Garber didn't do it for me, possibly because I was waaaay high up and his choices felt small for City Center's vast space. Christine Baranski just didn't seem ready to be singing "I'm Still Here", and in a weird way, watching her reminded me of myself when I was an acting student, stumbling through material I knew just didn't fit, and trying extra hard to make it work. Maybe she just needed more rehearsal time to figure it out. (I'm by no means comparing my own talent to hers, Christine Baranski is a fabulous actress whose work I normally love, but this just wasn't happening.)

Me and my "date", who is also a big Sondheim fan, were talking at intermission about how Sondheim's music and lyrics are similar to Shakespeare's writing. In Shakespeare, the actor can look to the rhythm of the iambic pentameter, and the emotional journey of the material almost leaps off the page, the acting choices presenting themselves within the text itself. Anyone who has examine Hermione's speech in A Winter's Tale knows what I'm talking about - literally taking a breath after each line of iambic pentameter immediately gives the impression of a woman who is exhausted from giving birth, pleading for justice. I think a huge part of Sondheim's genius is that his music and lyrics have the same quality. His songs are beautiful, but what makes them transcendent is the actor taking their emotional cues from the journey of the music. Victoria Clark achieves this impeccably: the high notes in "Too Many Mornings" correspond with the moments when she's losing control of her emotions, the power notes directly feed the strongest moments of wanting. Those low gravelly notes of "Losing My Mind" immediately draw Sally as a woman who can't sleep, can't eat, can't live without this man. It's like one hand washing the other - the performance and material working together in a way that few other musicals can achieve. That's what I live for in the theater - artistic collaboration in it's highest sense.

As to the rumors of a transfer, I strongly hope that it does not transfer unless they can retain Clark and Murphy, which seems unlikely with LoveMusik on the horizon. The two of them made the production, and with lesser actresses it would lose it's power. Thank god for these two women, who really can both sing and act exquisitely.

P.S.There's a pretty good video with clips from Follies on Broadway.com. Check it out here.