Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies (Applause Books) (16 page)

Lisa also said she was amazed at how quickly the set was coming together. She lamented the changes that had been made for economic reasons—first and foremost, changing the floor from wood planking to a flat floor painted to look like planking. There had been a compromise step contemplated—cutting grooves into a solid floor to make it look like planking—but painting the floor won out in the end. I would be surprised if Michael hadn’t chimed in on that decision, since anything that would have made the dancing surfaces potentially uneven could have proved devastating.

Several members of the Feller family stood around, taking it all in. They were used to visits by designers, directors, and producers, but an invasion of this many actors was a first. “This is the last of the biggies,” Pete said. And then, in a very straightforward manner, without any particular emotion, he observed: “It will be very good, be a hit, and not make money, although it will run.” He said he didn’t expect to see any profits from his $14,000 investment.

 

 

T
here had been progress in the music department on the day off. The song Steve had delivered to Mathilde was for Buddy in Loveland. I was handed a copy from which I was to extract the lyrics for the script. By this time I had learned how particular Steve was about how he wanted lyrics typed. In the script, they were to be in capitals with all punctuation in place—lines ending in commas, semicolons, periods, question marks if the line is a question, quotation marks if the line is a quote, and no punctuation only if the next line is a continuation. All slang was to be kept as written but vowels would be restored to words if they were removed in the piano/vocal sheet to indicate how specific syllables were to be sung. (For example, “EVERY” would go in the script, while “Ev-’ry” would go with the two corresponding notes in the score.) Spoken lines were to be written with normal usage of lower-and uppercase letters. The new song was entitled “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues.” It included internal dialogue, quotes, hyphens, and slang—the whole bit. As always, the stage managers were anxious that I get the lyrics typed out as quickly as possible. On the typewriter, the hyphen was a lowercase key, the capital letters, of course, uppercase, which meant constant shifting. The following was typical: “I’VE GOT THOSE ‘GO-AWAY-I-NEED-YOU,’ ‘COME-TO-ME-I’LL-KILL-YOU,’ ‘DARLING- I’LL- DO-ANYTHING-TO-KEEP-YOU-WITH-ME-TILL-YOU-TELL-ME-THAT-YOU-LOVE-ME-OH-YOU-DID-NOW-BEAT-IT WILL-YOU?’ BLUES.” The song was written for two men in drag to represent Sally (Buddy’s wife) and Margie (his mistress). From this moment on, it was alternatively titled “Buddy’s Blues.”

The work-through took until 4:30. Hal said he was very happy with how good everything looked and how the set seemed to enhance the show at every turn. Michael was most eager to work through the big dances on the set, so he took it for the rest of the day. Hal took the party scenes upstairs to “change some color and some style.” Steve found another room upstairs to work out some lyrics for a new song. He was in an expansive mood, praising the work done on the show so far and saying that he felt that every single movement on the stage was fascinating.

Hal cheerfully adjusted to working in a decidedly smaller space, a plain factory room with dirty white walls. He began by giving John McMartin a new line for Ben as he pours two brandies and drinks them both himself. After hearing it a couple of times, Hal said, “Well, John, I don’t think they’re going to fall out of their seats screaming with laughter and call for the author over that line, but I do think there’s more of a laugh to be found.” John listened, said nothing, then did the line completely differently and got a chuckle from everyone in the room. There was a new line for Dimitri Weismann, the Ziegfeld-like character, about how the party was tax deductible. Without a moment’s hesitation, Hal said to Edwin Steffe, the actor playing Weismann, “That is a new line and I haven’t given you a line reading yet.”

The day ended at 6:15, and everyone piled back into the bus. I sat with Fritz Holt, with whom I rarely had much opportunity to talk—no one is busier during rehearsals than the production stage manager. He mentioned that Hal had been concerned about working on the set this early, but that he understood Michael’s strong feeling about getting on those levels as early in the rehearsal process as possible. Fritz also knew that Hal wasn’t thrilled to realize that from here on, the only times the stage would be his was during run-throughs and cleanups. Run-throughs were going to start happening with increased regularity, to be sure, but scene work was going to be relegated to any place other than the set itself, which Michael would need for musical staging.

By the time everyone arrived for rehearsal on Sunday, the novelty of coming to the Bronx had worn off. Hal decided that he was going to be difficult. There were too many clamoring workmen around the set, and despite all pleas, there was still noise throughout the rest of the studio. He picked up the microphone that had been rigged up so he and Michael could be heard by everyone and announced that he wanted quiet, that he was not in a good mood, and that he intended to get a lot done today. Leaving the set to Michael, he took the actors in the book scenes upstairs.

Michael began with “Loveland.” For the first time, the pie-shaped steps were put in place. The workmen pushed the upstage side units to their extreme offstage positions, removed wedges underneath the two three-step units, and pivoted them down. The center of the stage then seemed like a big circle, although the steps weren’t actually on the same axis. Once they were in place, the dancers walked up and down, getting a feel for them. Michael blocked out the staging he had created in the studio, positioning the principals, young and old, downstage center, where they will be “having at” each other. The chorus then sweeps on from all sides and takes over the stage, enveloping the principals, who are cleverly removed without the audiences realizing what’s happening. They will be gone by the time the chorus pairs off to sing: “Time stops, hearts are young, only serenades are sung in Loveland, where everybody lives to love.” After a verse and a short dance, a V-shape will be formed along the sides, with everyone pointing to centermost upstage position. There, each showgirl makes an entrance, one at a time, accompanied by a recitation of a couplet about love assigned to the male dancers. Each costume is to be inspired by its corresponding couplet, and each showgirl will pose, then parade around the stage, displaying her outlandish and fantastical garment for all to see. Even with the dancers in motley rehearsal clothes, you could sense how the levels would all work together to give the audience the feeling that they were viewing everything slightly from above—halfway between a Ziegfeld staircase and the June Taylor dancers from the
Jackie Gleason Show.

Hal remained upstairs, going over transitions and party scenes. He worked on Heidi Schiller’s speech about her beloved composer who wrote the waltz “One More Kiss” for her. “Oscar Straus . . . or was it Johann?” She was now out of the wheelchair and on a cane. As her line was being shortened, Justine Johnston elongated whatever words she had left, as if filling her allocated time, no matter what. Yvonne rehearsed her speech about how wonderful it is to be in the movies because it keeps her young, although acknowledging that her type isn’t used as much as it once was: “Used to be I played the bitch who lost the boy; now I’m somebody’s hot-pantsed mother, stinko by my swimming pool and all my kids are acid heads. I love it!” Hal’s direction: “Make the ‘I love it’ really big.” Yvonne was feeling frisky. She had a lot of ideas. What if she said her speech to one person only, to Heidi, who happened to be standing right next to her? Hal said no, that Carlotta would never have a conversation with any one person; she would address a group. “I may be the son of a bitch who did this to you, but it will only bring out more vitality,” he said. He had her pose for several photographs during the scene, but she didn’t want to keep having to stop and start. She wanted to change a line from having “lost the boy” to having “stole the boy.” Hal reassured her that Jim had intended the line the way he wrote it. Ed Steffe couldn’t get enough lechery into his line with a young waitress: “So you want to be a star, my dear?” Hal thought maybe smoking long black cigars would help, and said that he didn’t mind if Ed smoked them all night long. Yvonne chimed in, “Not before my song!” “You know the trouble with that girl?” Hal said to the assembled group. “She’s a gun collector, and she’ll take out a Luger and shoot you.” Everyone laughed. Her mind was on “Can That Boy Fox Trot!” which was ready for Michael. They began working on it during the lunch break, and although she was excited, she said later that she didn’t care for some of the “suggestive gestures” Michael was contemplating.

Putting “Beautiful Girls” on the set proved to be a challenge. The plywood platforms back in the rehearsal room had been mastered, but the reality of the set was another story. The side unit that contained the stairs was designed to look like a collection of rubble. As a result, even though the rise was the same, each step was a different size and shape. The women were unnerved. Descending without falling down was one challenge, but to gain access to the top of the stairs for the entrance itself, everyone would have to climb up an offstage ladder attached to the furthermost downstage unit, cross over a plank behind the stage band, and then emerge, one at a time and on the proper beat of music, at the top of the next upstage platform. All the actresses were in some version of panic at the very thought, and the really smart ones realized that some of them were going to have to do this in long dresses. Michael and Bob, along with George Martin and John Grigas, lined the girls up and slowly walked them through and down the stairs. This took a lot of cajoling and hand-holding. And as if the actresses needed one more thing to be concerned about, they began to realize that once they stepped off the staircase onto the stage area to promenade around Miss America-style, they would cross the very front of the stage, which in the theater would drop off into the orchestra pit. There was a uniform look of panic on all faces.

Jonathan Tunick came with Steve and Jim in the afternoon. Although he had already been at work orchestrating much of the score, he was eager to see any newly staged numbers in context. Like any good orchestrator, he always liked to see the staging before beginning his work. Details, subtext, and punctuation can be influenced by performances and staging. He pulled out his tape recorder as “Loveland” was run, followed by “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow” and “Love Will See Us Through.” Steve and Jim watched as well, looking increasingly like proud parents.

It was approaching the end of the second day in the Bronx, and Monday was going to begin the four-to-midnight schedule. It had been two difficult but exhilarating days. It had also been tiring for everyone. Hal wanted to close the rehearsal by starting at the top of the show, after the Prologue, and working through until time ran out. He stopped after “The Road You Didn’t Take.” Lots of mistakes were made in “Beautiful Girls,” in the blocking and in entrances. Hal addressed the company: “I am sick and tired of hearing errors in the lyrics on the opening number. From now on, I will not tolerate any more goofs. It’s ridiculous. We’ve been at this for three weeks. We’ll never get this show together if we can’t remember things.” Michael, who, unlike Hal, had started the day off in a good mood, added: “Listen, this is a very difficult show, and there is a lot of work involved in putting it all together. If you find it necessary, carry a pencil and write down the movements, because I am tired of seeing, as I saw time and time today, the same mistakes being made over and over. If you have one song, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t know the lyrics. It’s nonsense. That’s all I have to say. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The cast shuffled out to the waiting bus, tired, exasperated, and chagrined.

 

 

C
ostume fittings were beginning to be scheduled during the daytime hours. The nighttime rehearsal schedule freed up the day, but any actor called to a costume fitting would be available for that much less rehearsal time, since actors were allowed to work only a set number of hours per day, and the clock started at their first call. One more thing to be coordinated by the stage management.

Hal asked me to take some dictation. He had the scene at the very end of the show on his mind. It didn’t yet exist, and he wanted to try to create a version that he could put into rehearsal. The challenge was to figure out how to get the principal characters out of the Follies sequence and back to reality. Steve wanted to try for a Pirandello moment in Ben’s song, in which somehow the character and the actor get confused and the audience wouldn’t be sure what was going on. (He succeeded skillfully in the song ultimately titled “Live, Laugh, Love.”) Steve also suggested they try an idea that was originally contemplated for
Gypsy,
in which the lead character becomes caught up in a kaleidoscopic nightmare of her life, with characters and bits and pieces of songs mashed together. (This became “Rose’s Turn.”) Hal’s concern at the moment was the scene that would follow the end of the Follies sequence. The assumption was that the four principals would be left alone on the stage. They would recover somehow from the group nervous breakdown and go back to their lives. But what would Ben, Phyllis, Sally, and Buddy be feeling? Hal was at somewhat of a loss to figure that out, since Ben’s number was only in discussion. “Loveland,” the songs for the Young Four, and “Buddy’s Blues” were finished, but there still was no determination about Phyllis’s and Sally’s numbers, so the problem of what they would actually say after going through their specific experiences hadn’t been solved. Hal had two different drafts from Jim Goldman, along with some pages of his own notes. Quietly reading from all the pages, flipping back and forth among them, he dictated his own version of the ending, very pensively, hardly raising his voice over a whisper. I wrote down whatever he said. When he was done, he asked that I type it up and bring a couple of copies to him so he could go over it with Michael. Two days later I was summoned to his office at Rockefeller Center, where he was going over the scene—his version, and a slightly different one he had received from Jim the night before. Jim sat silently as Hal discussed a couple of details, and then handed me a draft that he wanted typed out and distributed to the actors.