Yvonne was now getting through all of “Can That Boy Fox Trot!” without messing up the words too much. Gene Nelson was mastering most of the words and all of the movements to “The Right Girl.” The transition into Loveland went smoothly. The showgirls were allowed to do this run-through wearing only the headdress part of their costumes, and two walked out in blue jeans, one in green pants, two in black leotards, and one with nothing but a pink towel wrapped around her middle. Turns out that the last one hadn’t gotten the headdresses-only message and this was the way she would emerge from her dressing room before having the large skirt lowered on to her. More costumes were completed: the Follies dresses for Young Phyllis and Young Sally were bright and cheerful, with full, mid-length skirts with hints of the electric blue and bright orange of Young Buddy and Young Ben’s suits. Heidi Schiller’s costume was completed—white, beaded, and decidedly Germanic. She looked a little like a German drag act.
The chaos scene at the end was starting to come together. It was bold and complicated, beginning with the disintegration of “Live, Laugh, Love” into a visual and audio nightmare. John McMartin was almost scary at how well he played a man losing his grip, and it was chilling to hear Hal Hastings throw him a lyric. The orchestration hadn’t been completed, but Hal was able to maintain order and tempo throughout. Then, as bits and pieces of the Follies scenery began to fly away, other characters were revealed standing at different spots around the set, each doing his or her own character thing. It was positively macabre, but it seemed to be working. At a designated moment, Ben cried out for Phyllis. That was the cue for the chaos to end. Once again, Fritz Holt stopped the proceedings to ensure that everyone knew how to exit safely. This was a very tricky sequence, since the company was perched on all available areas around the set and had to make their way off with care. Fritz was concerned that it be worked through precisely. Once the cacophony faded away, the lights went out, everyone exited, and the four principals were revealed standing on an empty stage in their initial party clothes. As with all the complicated traffic patterns, it took a couple of passes for everyone to straighten out who was to go where, but the company was getting accustomed to these moments. And the stage managers were always ready with a helping hand, a flashlight, and an encouraging and sympathetic word. This time, the actors couldn’t go back to their dressing rooms, since the curtain call, not yet staged, would follow after the brief final scene. Once the lights came up on the last scene, the only difference to the set—and it was subtle—was that a street could now be seen through the upstage center panel. The night was over and the new day had arrived. But seeing daylight coming through also revealed that part of the wall of the theater had in fact already been torn down—something that was never made clear until that moment. And thanks to a curved element in the architectural detail, it looked as if the first thing that had been torn down was the theater’s marquee.
After only a short break, Hal wanted another complete run-through without costumes before dinner. This went fairly smoothly, with some portions even beginning to look confident. It finished by the end of the afternoon.
T
here was to be a complete dress rehearsal after dinner with costumes and orchestra. This was Friday, twenty-four hours away from the first paying audience. A few New Yorkers had arrived to rejoin the family—Judy Prince and John Guare, several of the New York-based staff, like press agent Mary Bryant, with Louis Botto and Bill Yoscary from
Look
magazine in tow, general manager Carl Fisher with his wife, Joan, and others. The cast was energized at the prospect of performing for even a small and familiar audience. Hal wanted to show his friends and colleagues how much had been accomplished. It was also actually a clever way of preparing for what was coming. Confidence was building, but the show was still not technically smooth. Those who appreciated how bold in concept it was were slightly apprehensive about what Saturday night would be like. How the audience would react was anyone’s guess, so letting the company play the show first for a theater-savvy “sort-of” audience who wouldn’t be shocked by a technical glitch here or there was a smart notion.
Larry Cohen was also up from New York, and he and I went to dinner together, sharing stories and gossip. He told me that Weismann’s first speech was being questioned—it needed to be clearer and more focused. There was concern that the setup of the young characters versus the older characters needed to be better established early on. A question had been raised as to whether having the showgirl ghost figures without present-day counterparts would confuse the audience. Were they just part of the scenery? Were they specific people from the past? Are they actually at the party? The question had been raised about why Ben and Buddy, neither of whom was ever a performer in the Follies, had songs in the Follies sequence. Everyone seemed to agree, however, that the set was brilliant, that although it was vast and complex, it was still able to isolate characters when they needed to be isolated. The jury was out on the costumes, especially the modern-dress ones. At least that is what had filtered back to Larry from Michael, with whom he had stayed in touch during the week.
The orchestra had been called before the rehearsal in order to go over some late-arriving orchestrations from Mathilde’s music-copying department. One was “Losing My Mind,” which had been left for last. Of course, very little in the way of staging was required for the song; it was just one person making some subtle movements. Dorothy squatted down on the front of the stage and looked into the pit as Hal Hastings played through the song with the orchestra. Mathilde and Jonathan stood in the front row at the orchestra rail, scores in hand, listening. Dorothy beamed all the way through. Hal suggested they do it again with Dorothy standing in the approximate position where she would be. She quickly walked upstage and marked through her singing while the orchestra played it again. She was giggly with delight and afterward came back down to the front of the stage to thank everyone in the orchestra. Jonathan stood smiling, more than willing to accept the compliment. Then the orchestra played through the chaos, which was now fully orchestrated. Since it was meant to be chaos, there was a general sense of bemused excitement. It seemed noisy enough to everyone. Jonathan Tunick gave his characteristic shrug, as if to say, “Okay with me. Okay with you?”
T
he dress rehearsal went fine. In fact, it was really beginning to feel like a show. The actors were ever more confident, the scenic changes were getting smoother with the units hitting their marks with greater ease; the light cues were also getting smoother. Each time the show was run, it got more fluid. There was a certain giddy nervousness arising at the prospect of playing for the first real audience. What will they think? At this point, no one knows, and emotions run the gamut. They’ll love us; they’ll hate us. They’ll be dazzled; they’ll be bored. I’ll win a Tony; I’ll be fired. My song will stop the show; mine is the song they’re going to replace. I’m the best thing in the show; I’m the only one who isn’t any good. My career will take off; I’ll never get another job. But there was one thing everyone knew: it was time for some honest-to-God audience reaction. And as a group, the audience doesn’t lie; their reactions are genuine. Will they get the marvel of “Who’s That Woman?” Will they make the connection between the lead characters and their Follies songs? Even the company-pleasers, like “Broadway Baby,” aren’t necessarily the things a paying audience will respond to.
When the rehearsal was over, a five-minute break was called. Little groups huddled around the auditorium in different places. What were they saying? Hal, Judy, John Guare, and Steve made up one group on the stage-left side, talking softly enough that no one could make out what they were saying. Ruthie had been excluded, so she was pacing nearby. Flossie and Joe Tubens were huddled in another corner. Michael and Bob Avian were sitting calmly. Tharon was at her desk, resolutely going over notes with her assistants. The stage managers had come out into the house, but they were keeping a safe distance. Clearly, the five minutes were going to be filled by these little huddles, and when the curtain came up and the cast began assembling onstage for notes, they, too, congregated in small groupings—Harvey Evans with Marti Rolph, Michael Misita and Mary Jane Houdina wrapped in each other’s arms.
The notes to the company were brief and simple. It was clear that energy needed to be preserved for Saturday, because there would be a complete, full dress rehearsal with orchestra, costumes, hair—everything—starting at noon. Then there would be a lengthy break before half-hour call for the first preview at 7:30. Hal simply said that he’d have a few notes before the run-through, and we’d stage a curtain call before the run as well. Then he wished everyone a good night’s sleep.
H
eading into Child’s restaurant on Saturday morning for breakfast, I ran into Fred Kelly sitting alone at a booth and asked if I could join him. As I sat down, he asked how my journal was going. He taught theater in New York, he said, and would be very interested to see what I came up with when I was finished. I made a couple of overall comments about what an interesting experience I was having, and then, before I said anything about the show itself, he leaned over the table. “You know,” he said, “nothing unusual has yet happened on this show.” I couldn’t believe my ears. My first thoughts were instantly defensive: “Are you crazy? Don’t you get how amazing this show is? Has anyone ever assembled these wonderful old-timers together with such a gifted group of young performers? Can’t you feel the tension between Hal and Michael? Don’t you realize that Steve Sondheim is the most interesting writer of musicals to come down the pike in years? Can’t you see what’s being created here?” But I said nothing. Maybe he was right. Maybe this was the norm. Maybe by the very nature of the beast, the norm in the theater is indeed the kind of creative and emotional mosaic that I had been observing. Each specific situation may be different, but is it always the same? To be truthful, I wasn’t impressed by Fred Kelly onstage; he wasn’t a particularly memorable performer and hadn’t been given much of anything to do. He had a great name, but I really couldn’t figure why he’d been hired, or even why he would want to be part of the company. And yet on the couple of occasions when he and I chatted, he was highly articulate, with a very distinct point of view. I left breakfast wondering whether maybe I was too caught up in everything to have any perspective. Maybe the show was more ordinary than I thought.
At noon, Hal and Michael staged a curtain call. Curtain calls rarely get attended to until the last moment, partly out of superstition and partly for lack of time. Choreographers and directors prefer to work on the show itself rather than on the portion of the evening where the cast gets congratulated. Since the curtain call for
Company,
was brilliantly staged, I wondered if
Follies
would get a similarly clever treatment. For
Company,
the call was almost entirely choreographed, and at one point the entire company danced downstage so far that the curtain came in behind them. All of Bobby’s friends took the call, leaving him alienated, behind the curtain. This clearly wasn’t the moment when
Follies
was going to get a fully choreographed set of curtain calls. For now, the call was staged strictly according to the billing. After the ensemble, out came, in order, Ethel Shutta, Mary McCarty, Fifi D’Orsay, Yvonne De Carlo, John McMartin, Dorothy Collins, Gene Nelson, and Alexis Smith. The company walked through the blocking, rather businesslike, Bob Avian and a couple of others providing a sense of the applause that would greet them. In fact,
Follies
never did get a carefully conceived curtain call. The music was adjusted to reflect each actor, but that was it.
Then there was the final full dress run-through, with the works—costumes, orchestra, sound, hair, makeup, and lights. Still no audience—just us hangers-on. Things progressed nicely until “Don’t Look at Me.” At one tricky rhythm pattern, John McMartin got slightly behind, which then threw Dorothy off. Hal Hastings stopped the orchestra and said: “No, no, you keep doing that. You get so far behind, and by the end you get later and later.” He told the orchestra to go back to a certain bar number and start again. It was just as bad. The pressure was on. These were two pros and this was a piece of music they had been performing over and over; there was no good reason for them to be flubbing it. The tension was palpable. Hal asked if John and Dorothy could hear the orchestra. They tried again, this time with Hal singing along. It didn’t help. Steve walked down to the front row. He was the calming influence that was needed. He stood quietly behind Hal Hastings and said to John: “In the first part, after Dorothy sings ‘fat,’ take two breaths, then sing ‘turning gray.’ At the end, listen to Dorothy and copy her rhythm
exactly.”
He remained standing there as Hal Hastings re-cued the orchestra. This time the song was performed as written. Steve knew the problem was John’s and knew what to say to solve it. Later he told me that Dorothy devised ways of squeezing whatever part of John’s body was close by as a cue for him to begin his part.
After the Montage, one of the winches on stage left came to a grinding halt. Pete Feller and two stagehands came out onstage and pushed the unit back into position. “God,” everyone thought, “what happens tonight if it gets stuck like that? We can’t have stagehands walk out in the middle of a performance, let alone the man who owns the scenic studio.” Aside from that, the rest of the run-through went smoothly.
Once the curtain came in at the end, the cast remained onstage, still in costume, for brief notes. Fritz gave the cue for the curtain to be raised, and Hal came up onstage to give a pep talk. “I know we haven’t said this to you yet, but this is a slightly odd show. None of us can predict what the audience will think tonight. There will be laughs where none of us expect them, and there’ll be many times where we thought big laughs would come when there will be none. Also, in the Prologue we can’t tell who will get a hand and who won’t, so keep the timing we’ve set and keep going through the applause. So everyone do your best, and we love you all.” Michael chimed in with a good luck as well. The cast dispersed to their dressing rooms. The audience would soon be upon us.