Follies (review)

Even before the orchestra played the first notes, the audience was already seeing ghosts. Spectral showgirls lingered silently in the corners and glided smoothly along the catwalks of the three-story set, living elements of the opening mise en scène. The Kennedy Center's 2011 revival of Follies filled the theatre with phantoms. While the actors' bodies made tangible the spirits written into the show by James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim, other more-elusive ghosts—specters of the musical's past productions, memories of all-star casts, and echoes of now-cliché musical styles—were conjured by the familiar faces of the actors and thought-provoking stage pictures. It would be easy to dismiss this production as just another revival among many. In the last few decades, American stages have certainly seen their share of resuscitated storylines and songs, including both revivals of past musical theatre favorites, and the emergence of new musicals based on popular movies and music. Functioning as a reflection on theatre's instinct toward revival, this (re)production of Follies challenged the inherent impulse toward nostalgia, while confronting the consequences of reviving and reliving the past. Invoking multiple levels of memory through its staging, casting, and tone, the Kennedy Center's restoration served as a valuable commentary on the current state of the Broadway musical industry, even as it somewhat ironically perpetuated the status quo.

Originally produced in 1971, the musical has seen many revivals, including a 1985 Lincoln Center concert and 1987 West End production, both of which significantly rewrote and reconceived the original. Whereas the London production exemplified a decidedly optimistic tone, the Kennedy Center's revival (with Bernadette Peters as Sally, Jan Maxwell as Phyllis, Danny Burstein as Buddy, and Ron Raines as Ben) returned to and even amplified the sardonic feeling of the original, transforming the characters' trips down memory lane from experiences of saccharine nostalgia into heart-wrenching melancholy. Choosing to embrace the darker side of Sondheim and Goldman's creation, director Eric Schaeffer repeatedly placed the past alongside the present through his use of the space and his nuanced interpretation of the title theme, the folly of reviving the past.

Set in a crumbling theatre, Follies opens with the past performers of the fictional Weismann Follies reuniting on their old stage to revisit and bid adieu to the past. The three-story set, painted in dismal hues of gray, emphasized the years gone by. As the characters arrive in the space, the memories pour forth—echoes of songs already sung, longings for relationships lost. In Sondheim and Goldman's creation, these memories materialize. Doubled by her or his younger self, youthful incarnations shadow each elder character throughout the show. In Schaeffer's interpretation, ghostly showgirls lingered on the catwalks from beginning to end, silently looming over the reunion. For the characters, the memories begin as enjoyable, harmless recollections (exemplified in "Rain on the Roof" by vaudeville couple Emily and Theodore), yet they turn to destructive revelations. For example, Ben seemingly reignites his affair with Sally in "Too Many Mornings", only to reject her at the number's close, just as he had years before. This ill-fated rekindling of Ben and Sally's romance in turn outrages their spouses, who respond angrily in Buddy's "The Right Girl" and Phyllis's "Could I Leave You?" By the show's intermission, acts of remembrance bring both couples to the brink of divorce.

Ron Raines (Ben), Bernadette Peters (Sally), Lora Lee Gayer (Young Sally), and Nick Verina (Young Ben) in Follies. (Photo: Joan Marcus.)

In the Kennedy Center's production, the physical bodies of the actors onstage complicated the process of revival and repetition by emphasizing the destruction done to the present. Schaeffer's use of Derek McLane's scenic design positioned the past as a consistent force on the present; the weight of the memories, made tangible by the presence of the ghosts stacked in two stories of catwalks...