Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies (Applause Books) (20 page)
Read Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies (Applause Books) Online
Authors: Ted Chapin
Hal gathered the whole company together to give his notes from Monday night’s run-through. Many were about cleaning up entrances and exits. He cut Carlotta’s escort, Randy, out of her number entirely, though he was to remain her escort. She would now do the number entirely on her own.
Ethel Shutta was back on Tuesday, ready to work but clearly not fully recovered. She made a perch for herself off in a corner to rest when she wasn’t needed. She brought me a little present, as she did from time to time. I decided that I could do a lot worse than having Boris Aronson and Ethel as grandparents. I gave her a ride home, and she started talking about the show and about how she didn’t like certain people. She hesitated a bit, then said, “I don’t care, I’m going to tell you the truth. I don’t care if they let me go. If I’m fired, I’ll look at them and say, ‘Goodbye,’ because I did this show to prove to myself that I still had it, that I could still make people laugh and keep them entertained.” Two things were bothering her. First, she suspected that several cast members whom she felt weren’t as good as she was—Fifi in particular—were being paid more than she was. The other thing on her mind was Hal Hastings, who in her opinion was rude and cruel to people, especially to Michael Bartlett, “who has such a lovely voice and has done so much with his life—to be treated with such little respect is just mean.” The company continued to adore Ethel, and every time she did “Broadway Baby,” people would watch and laugh.
With more songs completed and staged, there was an increasing amount of shuttling music elements around the city. Jonathan was finished orchestrating “One More Kiss,” so it had to get to Mathilde’s for the orchestral parts to be extracted. As Jonathan wearily opened his apartment door to hand me the score, I remarked that this one was probably simple because it was short. “To an orchestrator, a bar is a bar,” he said, “and all the songs in this show are long. This one is a hundred bars, which makes it probably the shortest.” He still had a long way to go, and many more bars to orchestrate.
Run-through position: Fritz Holt, Steve Sondheim, Jim Goldman, Michael
Bennett, me (notepad in hand), Hal Prince, Tharon Musser Ruthie Mitchell.
Bennett, me (notepad in hand), Hal Prince, Tharon Musser Ruthie Mitchell.
Wednesday brought the second full run-through of the week. It felt better and more confident than the one on Monday; there were fewer lost lyrics, and fewer missed entrances. Two more Follies songs were being incorporated. First was “Buddy’s Blues.” As soon as the Young Four finished their double love songs, Gene came out to the center of the stage, wearing a derby and driving a little prop car, Donald Duck-style. He started the song as if peering through a parted curtain. “Hello, folks, we’re into the Follies,” he sang and at a certain point, drove his little car around the stage, evoking the life of a traveling salesman. On one side of the stage his mistress, “Margie,” deadpanned non-passionate love for Buddy, while on the other side “Sally” exclaimed how much she loved another man. Both “Margie” and “Sally” were played by men—the robust John J. Martin and the average-built Dick Latessa—replete with feather boas. Gene dropped two full choruses of lyrics, but it didn’t matter. It was a tongue-twisting lyric, with lengthy and slightly variable descriptions of blues: “I’ve got those ‘tell-me-that-you-love-me-oh-you-do-I’ ll-see-you-later’ blues” etc., but everyone got the point nonetheless. The ending was raucous, Gene forgot all his lines, but the company applauded loudly. You could see that Gene was relieved. I didn’t get the drag idea, but surmised it was a reference to some old Follies convention with which I was unfamiliar. One more number moving toward completion.
As soon as the applause died down, Hal Hastings moved to the piano bench, replacing the rehearsal pianist, and began to play a slow four-bar introduction. Dorothy walked to center stage, turned slightly, looked up and out, let her arms fall straight down at her sides, and sang:
The sun comes up,
I think about you.
The coffee cup,
I think about you.
I want you so,
It’s like I’m losing my mind.
I think about you.
The coffee cup,
I think about you.
I want you so,
It’s like I’m losing my mind.
The morning ends,
I think about you.
I talk to friends,
I think about you.
And do they know?
It’s like I’m losing my mind.
I think about you.
I talk to friends,
I think about you.
And do they know?
It’s like I’m losing my mind.
All afternoon,
Doing every little chore,
The thought of you stays bright.
Sometimes I stand
In the middle of the floor,
Not going left,
Not going right.
Doing every little chore,
The thought of you stays bright.
Sometimes I stand
In the middle of the floor,
Not going left,
Not going right.
I dim the lights
And think about you,
Spend sleepless nights
To think about you.
You said you loved me,
Or were you just being kind?
Or am I losing my mind? . . .
And think about you,
Spend sleepless nights
To think about you.
You said you loved me,
Or were you just being kind?
Or am I losing my mind? . . .
She turned and moved very slightly as the music went on. Then she repeated the last chorus, finishing quietly. Hal Hastings played the final two bars and ended on one slow arpeggiated chord. He let the notes die out slowly. There was a moment of absolute silence. Then the entire place burst out in prolonged cheers, applause, and cat whistles. Dorothy shyly broke character and smiled, then turned on her heels and began to blush. She laughed her nervous laugh, looking embarrassed, and wandered over to where Hal and Michael were sitting. They got up and hugged her. So did Bob Avian, who, it turned out, had done the staging for the number. Everyone was smiling. It had to do with a combination of circumstances—the mounting pressures, the realization that Boston was upon us, the growing recognition within the company of tensions among the creative staff, and just plain exhaustion after four hard weeks of rehearsal—but the release was overwhelming.
As soon as the applause died down, every member of the company went over to Dorothy individually to give her a hug, pat her on the back, and tell her how moved they were. Several told her that her singing “Losing My Mind” would be the glorious culmination of a glorious evening. This happy moment meant the world to Dorothy, because earlier in the day Mrs. Pete Feller had, with impeccably bad timing, sidled up to her to confess how dull and boring she thought the whole show was. Dorothy hadn’t told anybody about that conversation, but with this triumph she got a new burst of energy. She knew that
Follies
was a great opportunity for her, the best she had had in a long time and probably the best she would ever have again, and she had been very patient over the past several weeks, waiting for a decision to be made about her song. If what Lynn Feller said had shaken her confidence—in the show, or in her own abilities—delivering the song so successfully restored it. She was as happy at this moment as she was ever going to be on the show. She had conquered.
Follies
was a great opportunity for her, the best she had had in a long time and probably the best she would ever have again, and she had been very patient over the past several weeks, waiting for a decision to be made about her song. If what Lynn Feller said had shaken her confidence—in the show, or in her own abilities—delivering the song so successfully restored it. She was as happy at this moment as she was ever going to be on the show. She had conquered.
Pleased and smiling, Steve Sondheim.
I
drove Steve home from rehearsal and took the opportunity to ask him how he thought the show was progressing. He was concerned that there hadn’t been enough run-throughs but admitted that that was partly because so much of the score was late. And he acknowledged that part of the reason was his procrastination, but he also complained that it had taken so long for the creative staff to come to agreement about the Follies sequence. He said Hal may appear to hate rehearsals, but he told me to wait until Boston, when he would kick into action as soon as the show was put in front of an audience. He expressed concern about the tone of the show, which he said was still somewhat up for grabs. I asked if the show was still a labor of love for him, and he said his guts weren’t in it anymore, that it was definitely more theatrical but he wasn’t sure he liked it as much as
The Girls Upstairs.
He liked most of the staging, but wasn’t happy with “the way Ben runs around in ‘The Girls Upstairs.’ ” But he said he would stand behind the show wholeheartedly, and even in the state it was in six months ago, it was better than much of what’s out there on Broadway. He asked me what I thought, and I didn’t really know what to say. Okay, I was intimidated.
drove Steve home from rehearsal and took the opportunity to ask him how he thought the show was progressing. He was concerned that there hadn’t been enough run-throughs but admitted that that was partly because so much of the score was late. And he acknowledged that part of the reason was his procrastination, but he also complained that it had taken so long for the creative staff to come to agreement about the Follies sequence. He said Hal may appear to hate rehearsals, but he told me to wait until Boston, when he would kick into action as soon as the show was put in front of an audience. He expressed concern about the tone of the show, which he said was still somewhat up for grabs. I asked if the show was still a labor of love for him, and he said his guts weren’t in it anymore, that it was definitely more theatrical but he wasn’t sure he liked it as much as
The Girls Upstairs.
He liked most of the staging, but wasn’t happy with “the way Ben runs around in ‘The Girls Upstairs.’ ” But he said he would stand behind the show wholeheartedly, and even in the state it was in six months ago, it was better than much of what’s out there on Broadway. He asked me what I thought, and I didn’t really know what to say. Okay, I was intimidated.
The next day I volunteered to play chauffeur for Steve and Judy Prince, who were off to
The House of Blue Leaves.
The two of them had been friends for years, and their banter was comfortable and witty. As Judy climbed into the backseat, she asked Steve how things were going. He said that he was in the middle of writing Alexis’s number for the Follies sequence and had found himself in “a fit of rhyming fun” of which he was proud. He then proceeded to recite the following lines. The song, designed for a woman unable to reconcile the bohemian life she once led as a Follies girl with the conservative, sophisticated life she has ended up living, was called “Uptown, Downtown.”
The House of Blue Leaves.
The two of them had been friends for years, and their banter was comfortable and witty. As Judy climbed into the backseat, she asked Steve how things were going. He said that he was in the middle of writing Alexis’s number for the Follies sequence and had found himself in “a fit of rhyming fun” of which he was proud. He then proceeded to recite the following lines. The song, designed for a woman unable to reconcile the bohemian life she once led as a Follies girl with the conservative, sophisticated life she has ended up living, was called “Uptown, Downtown.”
She sits at the Ritz
With her splits
Of Mumm’s
And starts to pine
For a stein
With her Village chums,
But with the Schlitz
In her mitts
Down in Fitzroy’s Bar,
She thinks of the Ritz—oh,
It’s so
Schizo.
With her splits
Of Mumm’s
And starts to pine
For a stein
With her Village chums,
But with the Schlitz
In her mitts
Down in Fitzroy’s Bar,
She thinks of the Ritz—oh,
It’s so
Schizo.
(This lyric did end up in “Uptown, Downtown,” but the song was replaced in Boston.)
When I got home, I decided to write down my feelings, directly, for the first time. Here is an excerpt:
I am now sitting here thinking about today, what it was like, what the show was like, where my head is at, and what I really think about both the show and my life. Monday’s run-through brought out all the bad things in the show. I was convinced the book was a total bore, that there was no human warmth on stage, and that if any critics in Boston say anything positive about the show they would be crazy. Well, tonight that run-through took on a perspective, since today made me realize there is a hell of a lot about the show that is really great. The staging is brilliant—no arguments. There is some humor in the book, but as Steve said, Jim’s brand of humor is very subtle and not joke-oriented at all. But it’s hard for me to differentiate what I am really feeling from what is merely a conglomeration of what I’ve heard expressed by others, what I have been told, and what I’ve been influenced by. How do you keep perspective when you’re so close to something?
So what is my opinion of
Follies
at this point, one week before going to Boston? I really don’t know. I guess I think I fear the show will be brilliant, funny, witty, full of adroit observant things, and yet cold. Will it appeal to those who adore Steve’s work? Is that too small a group? Is the show, and the theater in general, a place for a small group of elitists to go to be amused or entertained? Can you try to teach things, even unpleasant things, to audiences who only want to be entertained? Will they accept it? The few isolated examples of successful “serious” musicals have been able to reach audiences by playing directly on their emotions. What of Steve Sondheim’s and Jim Goldman’s genuine emotions come through in this work? I don’t know. I firmly believe that the best way for theater to teach is through humor. An audience will cry a lot more if it comes out of laughter than if it comes out of being told to cry. The whole idea of people’s relationships with their past is intriguing, but is it as insane-making as the creators of
Follies
seem sometimes to believe? As written,
Follies
says that 1) man’s inability to deal with his past eventually leads him into some form of breakdown, and 2) his past is terrifying when he looks back on it, sees how he behaved, and realizes how little he knew. I would like to see the show deal with the feeling that 1) coming to terms with the past will eventually leave you better equipped to deal with the present, 2) there is an innate loveliness in the innocence of youth, and 3) delving into the past makes one understand that we never stop growing. My beliefs tend to side with a basic hope in people, in the mind and heart to pull us through life, if you will.
Follies
is an important show, and I frankly hope it will run longer than any of Steve’s other shows, but for that to happen I think the four main characters must be better off for having lived through the experience of the show. I am not talking about cheapening it for New York audiences. I am talking about being careful not to be indulgent. What got me to feel as I do this evening, and to write this all down, inarticulate though it feels, is because “Losing My Mind” moved me more than anything else has over these past several weeks.
Follies
at this point, one week before going to Boston? I really don’t know. I guess I think I fear the show will be brilliant, funny, witty, full of adroit observant things, and yet cold. Will it appeal to those who adore Steve’s work? Is that too small a group? Is the show, and the theater in general, a place for a small group of elitists to go to be amused or entertained? Can you try to teach things, even unpleasant things, to audiences who only want to be entertained? Will they accept it? The few isolated examples of successful “serious” musicals have been able to reach audiences by playing directly on their emotions. What of Steve Sondheim’s and Jim Goldman’s genuine emotions come through in this work? I don’t know. I firmly believe that the best way for theater to teach is through humor. An audience will cry a lot more if it comes out of laughter than if it comes out of being told to cry. The whole idea of people’s relationships with their past is intriguing, but is it as insane-making as the creators of
Follies
seem sometimes to believe? As written,
Follies
says that 1) man’s inability to deal with his past eventually leads him into some form of breakdown, and 2) his past is terrifying when he looks back on it, sees how he behaved, and realizes how little he knew. I would like to see the show deal with the feeling that 1) coming to terms with the past will eventually leave you better equipped to deal with the present, 2) there is an innate loveliness in the innocence of youth, and 3) delving into the past makes one understand that we never stop growing. My beliefs tend to side with a basic hope in people, in the mind and heart to pull us through life, if you will.
Follies
is an important show, and I frankly hope it will run longer than any of Steve’s other shows, but for that to happen I think the four main characters must be better off for having lived through the experience of the show. I am not talking about cheapening it for New York audiences. I am talking about being careful not to be indulgent. What got me to feel as I do this evening, and to write this all down, inarticulate though it feels, is because “Losing My Mind” moved me more than anything else has over these past several weeks.
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