Follies: Is "Too Many Mornings" Only in Sally's Head?

[logan0215]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 12:28am

**This could contain some spoilers regarding Follies, but if you've heard any Follies cast recording you'd know most of these plot points**

The staging, specifically the interaction between the ghosts of their former selves and the present day Sally & Ben, make me feel like this is all a fantasy in Sally's head.

Is it that or is Ben just manipulative to the point that he'd actually say "It was always real" in order to get into Sally's pants? The fact that he's on to Carlotta the very next scene makes it seem like he was saying anything to anyone in order to get some at the reunion and is such a stark contrast from the lovey-dovey Ben from the "Too Many Mornings" scene...

Updated On: 9/11/11 at 12:28 AM

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 12:45am

I wouldn't say that ben is trying to "get some" but he's frustrated with his relationship with Phyllis. It doesn't work, of course, because he doesn't love himself, but he doesn't realize that yet and he tries to find love where he can get it to prove to himself that he doesn't have a problem--whether that's with Sally, who he is trying to convince himself he still loves, or if he's hitting on Carlotta. He's just trying so hard to make something work. It is definitely not in Sally's head. I think the ghost interaction in the scene means that they're holding on to the images of each other in the past. The scene itself is not in Sally's head, although the show treads the line between reality and fantasy so well that to define everything as real or in someone's head would ruin some of the impact. The show goes back and forth between reality and not until the whole thing is thrown away.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 3:41am

^^^^

Well put. The scene is not only in their heads, but Ben, at least, is seeing Sally as he saw her 30 years ago, not as she looks now.

As for making a pass at Carlotta, Ben's been doing that sort of thing his whole life.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 8:33am

I see no evidence it was originally intended to be imaginary. It could be staged that way, or at least suggested that way by a particular production, and Peters' nutty Sally certainly suggests it in the present revival. I doubt its ever been interpreted that way before. Certainly Ben is making the moves on Sally at the reunion and I don't think its a huge leap from there to his singing to her "it was always real." In fact, it seems to me he believes his feelings for Sally, such as they are, are real. Ben is a lost soul, not a "player."

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 10:30am

No. Next question?

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 12:17pm

Yes, if Rob Marshall directs it.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 12:34pm

No, Ben's crazy too.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 3:26pm

Maybe everything in Sally's head is actually taking place in Ben's head.

It's like he's losing her mind.

[AC126748]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 3:28pm

Maybe everything in Sally's head is actually taking place in Ben's head.

That's Diane Paulus' version, in which Sally also sings "Losing My Mind" while actually actively searching for her lost mind.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 3:31pm

... while an accordion wheezes mournfully in the background ...

[beaemma]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 3:32pm

The song is really happening, but Ben and Sally don't experience it in the same way. In the original staging of the song, Ben caressed Young Sally while her real counterpart stood behind the ghost miming her movements exactly, responding as if he is caressing her. Of course, in reality he is caressing the woman at the party, but the presense of the ghost shows that he's actually seeing her as she was thirty years ago. He's overcome by a kind of nostalgia for their old affair (and his old conquest). Sally deludedly thinks he loves her today, but he's just caught up in a memory and snaps out of it when she states her assumption that they will now run off and marry. I have seen the song staged in other ways in subsequent productions, but the interpretation inspired by the original staging always comes through for me.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/11/11 at 3:39pm

Point taken, Henrik. I think Ben is a "player," but not in that scene, not when he sings, "It was always real, and I've always loved you this much." Of course, he's singing to the Sally of 30 years ago.

I wonder if that is how Ben has always justified his dalliances: as consolation for marrying the girl who would look best on an important man's arm (Phylllis) rather than the girl who would love him for himself (Sally). (I'm speaking from Ben's deluded point of view, of course.)

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 2:18am

Ben doesn't love himself because he knows he's a total fraud. Phyllis knows it, too.

But Sally doesn't. So Ben, for a short period, gets to "return" to a time in his past when he was still able to fool Sally, Phyllis and...himself. The reunion offers him a moratorium on his self-loathing because he gets to spend time with a woman who was too naive to accept that the man she believed she was "in love" with was a first-class cad. I mean, even though he dumped her for Phyllis, Sally still carries a torch for him. Ben experiences a sort of redemption (albeit a rather brief one)...until "reality" rears its ugly head and he remembers that who he is today is only a more evolved and sophisticated version of himself from 20 years ago. The road he DID take never veered off the path to superficiality and deceit he started on when he was a young man.

You can lie to people and convince them that the reality you are creating for them is the one and only truth. But you always know it's a lie. And until you start living your life honestly, you will always be miserable. This is what, I believe, Ben begins to understand by show's end.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 8:54am

With all the threads, ruminations, discussions, casting opinions, staging opinions, costuming opinions, song replacement opinions, book opinions, and intermission opinions, I think Follies could quite possibly be the single most tedious musical in the history of the art form.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 8:58am

^ We have a winner!

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 4:41pm

I couldn't agree more with beaemma about the original staging. Granted I saw it when I was 17 and from a hick town where theater was a rarity; but the staging of that song was the second most brilliant thing I'd ever seen. (The first being the "Mirror" number.)

I have no idea (other than directors' egos) why subsequent productions do it any other way.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 4:46pm

IMO, the winning post is yours, Besty;

"Maybe everything in Sally's head is actually taking place in Ben's head.

It's like he's losing her mind."


It actually did make me laugh out loud.

Perfect.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 5:10pm

I have no idea (other than directors' egos) why subsequent productions do it any other way

Because the script was rewritten. Now it's written to have Ben seeing Young Sally and Sally seeing Young Ben (one of the changes I do not agree with).

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 5:42pm

Yay, Miss Penny! So glad you got a good laugh out of it.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 6:17pm

Thank you, Phyllis Rogers Stone. I didn't know that about the script changes.

Perhaps the technique has been used in so many subsequent shows, it has lost its impact. But in 1971, seeing Sally caress "the air" and realizing what was going on in her mind was a real coup de theatre for me!

Adding the ghost of young Ben seems to change the scene and, in a way, lessens the impact of Ben's and Sally's respective delusions. I always thought Sally was seeing middle-aged Ben, while he was seeing young Sally. That made their "follies" different, though not unrelated.

And the sight of Sally making love to the empty air remains one of the most gut-wrenching sights I've ever seen on a stage. I don't know what they can do with Young Ben that can compete with that.
Updated On: 9/12/11 at 06:17 PM