©USA TODAY May 5, 1998 Sondheim lovers will find fun and flaws in 'Follies' By David Patrick Stearns
MILBURN, N.J. -- Few follies are as extravagant and impossible as the one created by Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince in the 1971 show Follies. The score's a string of Sondheim gems, from "Losing My Mind" to "I'm Still Here", but the show has always polarized audiences, and it resists revival with lavish scenic demands and casting requirements (veteran stars, and lots of them). So with a cast including Ann Miller, Kaye Ballard and Eddie Bracken, it's no surprise that the current Paper Mill Playhouse production, which runs through May 31, is drawing New York producers with an eye for moving it to Broadway. But though it boasts lots of fun individual moments that make it a draw for Sondheimites, a Broadway transfer would be, for lack of a better word, folly. Director Robert Johanson mostly uses James Goldman's 1971 libretto, and that version of this story of a reunion among aging, disillusioned showgirls seems dated. It once confronted a complacent 1960s America with its hypocrisy; now the middle-age characters seem pathetically immature. So much grandness rests on such slender character expositions, and Johanson's staging fails to make the most of what's there. But the musical numbers -- meant to re-enact the once-frivolous follies in conjunction with flashbacks, inner monologues and ironic, sardonic fantasy sequences -- make the production worth seeing. Even if Miller seems challenged to her limits while singing the anthem of survival, "I'm Still Here", it's a great moment as stage character and real-life MGM actress meld. Ballard, sadly, is curiously low-key in "Broadway Baby", but Donna McKechnie (the original star of A Chorus Line) is an utterly entrancing dancer in "Who's That Woman?", performing the re-created choreography of her late husband, Michael Bennett. In an astonishing switch from her Will Rogers Follies wholesomeness, Dee Hoty projects a frighteningly imperious sexiness as Phyllis that almost makes the whole thing theatrically viable. The onstage husbands blow hot and cold: Tony Roberts is terrific as the plainspoken Buddy, but Laurence Guittard (Ben) is a shambling lug shown up by the effervescent Michael Gruber, who plays the character's younger self. For all of the theatrical riches of this production, Follies requires still more. main Follies page

©USA TODAY
May 5, 1998

Sondheim lovers will find fun and flaws in 'Follies'
By David Patrick Stearns

MILBURN, N.J. -- Few follies are as extravagant and impossible as the one created by Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince in the 1971 show Follies. The score's a string of Sondheim gems, from "Losing My Mind" to "I'm Still Here", but the show has always polarized audiences, and it resists revival with lavish scenic demands and casting requirements (veteran stars, and lots of them).

So with a cast including Ann Miller, Kaye Ballard and Eddie Bracken, it's no surprise that the current Paper Mill Playhouse production, which runs through May 31, is drawing New York producers with an eye for moving it to Broadway. But though it boasts lots of fun individual moments that make it a draw for Sondheimites, a Broadway transfer would be, for lack of a better word, folly.

Director Robert Johanson mostly uses James Goldman's 1971 libretto, and that version of this story of a reunion among aging, disillusioned showgirls seems dated. It once confronted a complacent 1960s America with its hypocrisy; now the middle-age characters seem pathetically immature. So much grandness rests on such slender character expositions, and Johanson's staging fails to make the most of what's there.

But the musical numbers -- meant to re-enact the once-frivolous follies in conjunction with flashbacks, inner monologues and ironic, sardonic fantasy sequences -- make the production worth seeing.

Even if Miller seems challenged to her limits while singing the anthem of survival, "I'm Still Here", it's a great moment as stage character and real-life MGM actress meld. Ballard, sadly, is curiously low-key in "Broadway Baby", but Donna McKechnie (the original star of A Chorus Line) is an utterly entrancing dancer in "Who's That Woman?", performing the re-created choreography of her late husband, Michael Bennett.

In an astonishing switch from her Will Rogers Follies wholesomeness, Dee Hoty projects a frighteningly imperious sexiness as Phyllis that almost makes the whole thing theatrically viable. The onstage husbands blow hot and cold: Tony Roberts is terrific as the plainspoken Buddy, but Laurence Guittard (Ben) is a shambling lug shown up by the effervescent Michael Gruber, who plays the character's younger self.

For all of the theatrical riches of this production, Follies requires still more.

main Follies page