Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix "Follies"
Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix "Follies"
#1Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix "Follies"
Posted: 11/17/15 at 7:28pm
I was reading in a thread earlier that after Follies went out of town in Boston, Michael Bennett was aware that the show needed some fixes. Allegedly, he brought up two ideas to Hal Prince: they needed to bring in Neil, Simon to punch up the book, or Sondheim needed to write more book songs and create a sung-through show (which would also allow more "Bennett Moments"
. Obviously, the show was fixed and by opening night became the iconic show we know and (mostly) love, but I was wondering if anyone could validate these rumors - I found the second one particularly interesting.
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium." - Patti LuPone, a Memoir
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#2Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 7:46pm
Could not see Simon, best known for comedy, to punch up a serious work like Follies.The other idea of a sung through work I do not think would have worked either. Had both or one of the other happened I doubt Follies would have been an iconic work lasting all these years.
Poster Emeritus
#3Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 7:53pm
Well the book is basically one liners and insults that are meant to be funny and the laughs weren't consistent in Boston, so I can see how Bennett would get the idea.
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium." - Patti LuPone, a Memoir
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#5Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 8:21pm
Yes but it was awhile ago. In addition,for whatever it is worth, I saw the original production that played the Winter Garden..When all is said and done , it is a serious piece.
Poster Emeritus
#6Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 8:23pm
ljay889 said: "Have you read Everything is Possible?
A must read.
"
Just give the world Love.
Fantod
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/3/14
#7Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 8:32pm
The problem with Follies's book is that it's pretty structurally inept. The zingers are amusing, but the show doesn't really read well, and without a grand production to illustrate the tragic elements of the show, it comes off as a nasty piece of work
Auggie27
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
#8Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 8:45pm
I saw the original, and every major revival except London. I have never liked any of the adjustments to the book (save giving lines of narration in "Loveland" to Carlotta, which I still -- most days, not all -- think could be part of the show) none of which, in my opinion, improve the original. I have never found it nasty. But I have found it sad, fittingly melancholy. The central metaphor, the razing of a theater, speaks of decay, change, endings. Death. It's that bittersweet patina of sadness that is pervasive. All of the characters suffer the pain memory invariably inspires. It was discussed as the "anti-nostalgia" show, post "Nanette," a beacon of feel-good nostalgia. I can't hear the opening notes without feeling that stab of sad. The book, to me, is infused with same, and makes the musical flights possible.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
#9Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 8:46pm
I believe "Let's bring in 'Doc' Simon" was what everybody said whenever a show didn't seem to be working in those days. (Unless, that is, they were calling for Jerome Robbins.)
James Goldman's strength was one-liners (see THE LION IN WINTER), so I'm not sure how Simon would have been an improvement. "We haven't had an honest talk since 1941. Do you think the Japs will win the war?" still makes me laugh. If Boston audiences weren't laughing, it was because the dark humor of the piece seemed to conflict with the musical comedy numbers, not because Goldman couldn't write funny.
I question whether Broadway was ready for a sung-through Sondheim musical in early 1971. Look at the fates of STREET SCENE, GOLDEN APPLE, etc. Even MOST HAPPY FELLA (almost sung-through) got a tepid reception in the 1950s.
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (and then EVITA) got the sung-through trend rolling, but both were basically stagings of their concept albums and the use of pop and rock styles made it clear they were a "new kind" of show. IMO, obviously, since there's no way to prove what might have been.
But that final half-hour of FOLLIES *IS* sung-through and audiences found that difficult enough to follow (however much they enjoyed it).
BTW, yes, I read EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE, but I didn't memorize it. What does it say on this subject?
Updated On: 11/17/15 at 08:46 PM
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#10Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 8:52pm
I vividly remember going into an old shuttered theater in Brooklyn. It was the old Loews Pitkin It was the dead of winter. The theater was absolutely desolate with plaster peeling everywhere and the seats covered in that plaster. I ventured into the lobby. In the lobby,on the ice encrusted floor, was a plaster follies like mask that came off a wall. I tried digging it out with a pipe but it was lodged there and it simply got to cold.
Old abandoned theaters have lives of their own.It is eerie walking in one and imagining what happened there in all those years.
Poster Emeritus
#11Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 8:55pm
I absolutely agree with Auggie. I would only add that while FOLLIES was the "anti-nostalgia" show, its marketing made it seem of a kind with NO, NO, NANETTE and DAMES AT SEA and the other nostalgia shows of the time. No wonder audiences were unsettled, even feeling betrayed!
The fact that so many of us adored the show as teenagers probably says something very sad about our childhoods. LOL. Or, as somebody (Sondheim?) has said, maybe we liked it because we thought it could never happen to us. (That said and though the latest revival didn't really compare, I enjoyed it as much at 60 as I did at 17. But I knew what I was going to get when I bought the tix.)
Updated On: 11/20/15 at 08:55 PM
#12Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 10:26pm
Hal Prince has talked about the fights he and Michael Bennett had over bringing Neil Simon in. Simon and Bennett had become friends when they worked on Promises Promises together, and Bennett later would direct Simon's play God's Favorite and bring Simon in to write additional uncredited material for A Chorus Line.
The way Prince describes the fights with Bennett over Follies is that Prince agreed that the book of Follies needed fixing and he even agreed that Neil Simon could fix it. What Prince didn't want, as he tells it, was the kind of Follies that would result from Neil Simon fixing it.
Prince wanted the kind of Follies that was up on stage at the Winter Garden.
#13Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 10:39pm
I seem to remember from the Follies book (Everything was Possible) that Buddy was given a whole plethora of jokes though the course of the show. He was a jokester. The only one that remained when all was said and done was that terrible joke about the drunk pilot he tells about the beginning.
It's interesting. When Follies was in New York in 2011 I fell in love with it. Saw it 5 times, and then 5 more times in Los Angeles. But whenever I brought people with me to see it they told me they were bored. How is that even possible?? Hundreds of years of stage experience up there, top noch songs, costumes, orchestra... it was beautiful.
I actually miss it very much and get melancholy thinking I can never see it again...
#14Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 10:55pm
While it would've been interesting to see what Neil Simon would've brought to the table, I have to agree with Harold Prince on the Follies he wanted; and what he got was one of the biggest cults to follow a musical in the early 1970's before A Chorus Line. I think that while James Goldman's book is very very VERY flawed, it still has a strong air of intrigue, sadness, death, ghosts, etc. that does make Follies a bit interesting, but it's still the masterful score by Stephen Sondheim that levels high above it. All we need is a powerful, creative production in the future and who else could give it to us but Bartlett Sher and his talented crew? Now that would make my life complete.
#15Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/17/15 at 11:33pm
I actually don't understand the hate for Goldman's book. It's absolutely perfect for the show. There are certain lines ("If you don't kiss me Ben..." that say so much about the characters. The original book is pretty much perfect - especially the scene after "Who's That Woman?" where the two couples fight. This is often cut down or softened, but it reveals so much about these people. And Sally's suicide lines does so much to bring her a full character who is not fully stable, and the recent revival took those out so it just seemed like Sally was bat-**** crazy for no reason. She's not a stable person and never has been, she's just been pulling herself together because of the slight chance she might get Ben. And after that's gone - BAM!
If someone thinks they can write a better book, please do it. Oh wait, they already have and it went terribly. There's simply no way to beat Goldman's original book. Someone just needs to tell Widow Goldman that.
PS I love Everything Was Possible and have read it multiple times, but while the Neil Simon thing might have been brought up, I was mostly wondering about the suggestion for Sondheim to write the complete show - an idea that is so interesting to me. It wouldn't have been Follies, but it would have been something haunting, I'm sure.
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium." - Patti LuPone, a Memoir
#16Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 12:00am
Yeah the Neil Simon stuff has been very well documented (Mandelbaum's Bennett book brings it up, for example,) but I have never heard about the sung-through part.
I'm with Auggie about the original book--though I haven't seen it (just heard the sound board recordings and read along in the original published libretto and compared it to the revised version.) One thing is even Goldman's revised libretto makes everything incredibly literal--losing much of what makes his original libretto so beautiful (albeit, yes, sad but also like a real memory experience) I have no idea how much he borrowed from his London re-write, but I have to suspect at least some, since that version essentially made it into a big reunion show for old Follies girls--which is merely the backdrop of the original.
Updated On: 11/18/15 at 12:00 AM#17Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 12:19am
Thanks to Pal Joey for putting the matter so clearly and so succinctly.
And add me to those who like Goldman's original book. I found it thrilling, because it had never occurred to me (at 17) that a musical could "peel the onion" just like some straight plays do. I found Goldman's libretto funny and sad and very suspenseful, probably BECAUSE the amazing songs interrupted the navel gazing. (Somewhere in the garage, I have the original rehearsal script. I need to dig it out.)
(As most know, "onion peeling" refers to a narrative in which the characters look back in time, stripping away layers of delusion to see where things went wrong, rather than taking action to move forward to a new state. When onion peeling, retrospection IS the action. No wonder Sally seems so nuts! She's out-of-sync with the entire world of FOLLIES.)
IIRC, when Neil Simon tried to "peel the onion" in some of his later plays/screenplays (CHAPTER TWO, for example), the results were no more commercially popular then FOLLIES. To be clear, the BRIGHTON BEACH trilogy may look to the past, but the plays aren't retrospective in structure; they merely start in the past and move forward. And audiences liked them.)
Updated On: 11/18/15 at 12:19 AM
#18Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 1:09am
I love Follies, in particular its original production, which I've heard through recordings, read via the original published script, and even seen by way of shaky documentary video. In a way it's a little bit hamstrung by its own qualities - if everything isn't totally on-key, it feels fake. It's like the original cast of A Chorus Line vs the shiny, machinated revival, which turned larger-than-life people into smaller-than-life characters. I think a good Follies has to have total faith in what was presented in 1971: big, melancholy, and deeply wounding to both the people in it and the people watching it, like a Cassavetes film. But nobody wants to put on a show that isn't !!!fun fun fun!!!, so we'll probably never see it again.
#19Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 1:49am
"Sally's suicide lines"
Which lines are these?
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
evic
Broadway Star Joined: 3/5/04
#20Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 3:03am
The razing of the theater is a metaphor for the destruction of the principal's lives. What was once young, beautiful, happy and optimistic has turned into disappointment, regret, loss, and resignation to what has become of them. It is necessary to give some of the girls wisecracks because they were probably funny as young chorines like Hattie, Stella and even Carlotta. But adding a lot of comedy would have been a mistake considering what the show is about. It is a very sad themed piece.....and most of us who understand that can relate- especially those of us who are growing older.
#21Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 8:51am
"The problem with Follies's [sic] book is that it's pretty structurally inept."
Oh, ugh, this comment. There'll always be those who can't stand the Follies book, and others (like me) who think it's one of the best books ever created for a musical (and I'm only talking about the original seen at the Winter Garden, not any of the inferior revisions).
Some like to see Follies as a parade of old folks strutting their stuff in flashy, old-fashioned musical numbers. But Follies (need it be said again?) is about how life takes us all to places we never expected or wanted to go.
A friend from high school married his first love, had several children, has worked the same respectable job for decades, is now a still-happily-married grandfather; and yet time and again, he'll muse about how he had to abandon his dream of medical school when their first child came so early in his life, and he had to get a job right away. He will always wonder about his life as a doctor, the life that never happened.
That is what Follies is about.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#22Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 8:57am
"Sally's suicide lines"
Which lines are these?
"I should have died that first time. I should have been dead all these years."
#23Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 10:16am
It doesn't surprise me that our young AfterDeath, Fantod, thinks the FOLLIES books is inept, and a "nasty piece of work." Well, it's not inept, but it is a "nasty piece of work" intentionally. It doesn't sugarcoat (the way a lot of the revisions have). It's been explained so much more articulately in this thread than I ever could explain, so just add me to the chorus of people who think Goldman's original book is wonderful.
And holds up better than a lot of Neil Simon plays.
#24Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 10:51amI sure hope that one day we will see a production that uses James Goldman's original 1971 script. At least it was much better than the pointless revisions in later years, with the 2001 Roundabout production being the worst out of all of them.
Fantod
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/3/14
#25Michael Bennett's Attempt to Fix
Posted: 11/18/15 at 11:29am
jv92, now that's just unfair. I didn't say the book was a failure. In fact, it's exactly what the show needed in terms of script. Calling it a nasty piece of work was not an insult, but a comment on the tone of the work, which is intentionally mean-spirited. I don't even have a problem with that, as there are many excellent movies and plays that are mean-spirited. I was merely saying that the show was designed to be on stage, and not to be read. Now, the production I saw (at the Kennedy Center) just wasn't that kind of crazy good production that the original was, so it didn't really work for me as a whole. I wasn't really bored by it, but in the end I just couldn't care what happened. It's a mood piece, and when the mood isn't there, it doesn't really work.
