Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies (Applause Books) (30 page)

 

 

A
t this point, of course, no one knew how much work would take place over the next few weeks. In the abstract, everyone knew there would be some. But what opinions voiced over the past couple of months would come back to haunt us all? Which parts of the show that people had quietly complained about would prove to be real problems? To what extent would audience reactions dictate changes? The score was complete, but some of the songs were five years old while others were a week old; would they all gel? Would the “pastiche” numbers echoing the past blend well with the present-day book songs? As I sat there, watching and listening to the first audience, I saw the show take on a life of its own. None of these people knew where the laughs were, so no one could anticipate them. There, in front of me, was the show that we all had been contributing to. And instead of feeling proud, happy, or honored, I just sat there wondering whether the show was going to work. Some of the things I knew instinctively were good were proving to be good, and that was a relief—I wasn’t surprised that “Who’s That Woman?” received such a strong ovation. I knew it was a good song and well staged, and the reaction simply confirmed how good it was. Nor was I surprised that the audience didn’t respond to “Fox Trot.” All along, Steve had said it was a one-joke song, and now it seemed like a long pumped-up bad nightclub act. Yvonne just couldn’t pull off the new middle section in which she sang all three parts. I had no idea what they were going to do about it, but I knew it was a problem. Ethel Shutta’s “Broadway Baby” killed, as we all thought it would, but it was a scant three minutes out of two and a half hours; the show wasn’t going to live or die based on Hattie. And the story of the four lead characters seemed boring. I wasn’t sure the audience understood the Follies sequence: it seemed to be an awful long time coming, and when it arrived I didn’t sense an overwhelming feeling of joy among those around me. That worried me. Watching those drops fly in was as thrilling to me as it had been the very first day; and now that the set was complete, when the curtain parted for “Uptown, Downtown,” the silver fountains were all in place behind the company, who were all dressed in red. It was a spectacular moment, but it came at the end of a long evening. My sense was that the audience was almost numb by then; they didn’t react to the brilliance of this final burst of color as I had thought they would.

My personal response to the performance was one of almost sadness. I wasn’t sad for the show, but sad because of what the beginning of public performances meant for those of us in support positions. We were soon to be obsolete. I was surprised that I had grown to feel so much a part of the company. Yes, there were those I considered friends and those I hardly had reason to speak to, but it had come to feel like some kind of family nonetheless. The experience wasn’t over, but as I sat in the balcony watching the show, I realized that before too long I wasn’t going to be needed. The stage managers knew that I would be useful enough through the Boston run to endorse the management’s decision to pick up my hotel bill, but I saw an end in sight.

Even though there was no official party, everyone broke off into small gatherings. The bigwigs went to Trader Vic’s in the Statler Hilton, and most of the rest of the company to the Tiki Hut in Boston’s Chinatown. The difference between the two places was stark—the former heavily decorated and expensive, the latter very straightforward and unadorned. Both stayed open late. I went to the Tiki Hut, where Angela Lansbury turned up, fresh from a performance of
Prettybelle. She was greeted especially warmly by two members of the Follies company who had been in shows with her before—Harvey Evans (Anyone Can Whistle) and Kurt Peterson (Dear World).

 

 

S
unday morning, the creative staff gathered on the stage to discuss the performance of the night before. Hal kept urging his collaborators to listen to the audience. Fritz Holt had heard several patrons say they didn’t like the four main characters, who didn’t seem to like each other. Hal responded: “Yes, we know that, and that’s part of the point of the show. We also know that what we have to do is move the audience.” Someone reported hearing an audience member saying it was “just god-awful,” another that it was “longer than
Ben-Hur:”
Others reported hearing that the costumes were good. Of the cast, Dorothy got the majority of the kudos. Overall, the mood was optimistic but also realistic. There was work to be done, but a panic had not set in.

Hal had learned from George Abbott the wisdom of playing the first performance on a Saturday night, leaving Sunday to make changes before a second performance on Monday. If Mr. Abbott felt something didn’t work, out it went—no hesitation. He didn’t want a lot of talk; he just wanted things fixed. Hal wasn’t quite that kind of director, and this show was too ambitious, and too conceptual, for that sort of approach. But there were things that concerned him greatly. First on the list was the intermission. No one was happy that the show ran so long in one act, but there was no agreement on how that should be remedied. Hal wanted an intermission; he felt that the audience would “savor the show by having a breather in the middle.” Steve, on the other hand, wanted twenty-five minutes cut and no intermission. Someone had told him the show was like a banquet, and that by the time Loveland comes along, dessert has already been served. He himself didn’t have twenty-five minutes of cuts to offer; he just felt instinctively that the show played better as one unit and wanted to avoid an arbitrary break. The producer in Hal didn’t like seeing audience members wander up and down the aisles whenever they felt the need to take an intermission, and he was beginning to dig in his heels. He wanted an intermission. Michael was strangely quiet on the subject, but Hal felt so strongly that he persuaded everyone to give it a try.

Steve asked if anyone could figure out why Heidi Schiller got the biggest hand in “Beautiful Girls” when she made her way down the staircase. The consensus was that it took a while for the audience to catch on to the Miss America—style entrances at the top of the stairs, and when they did it just happened to be Heidi’s turn. Hal wanted to know if one of Yvonne’s lines was a joke: “When she tells the band to play in D minor, is that a joke? Is there such a key?” Steve said that, yes, there was, but that if Hal wanted the line to be a joke, she should say that she didn’t sing the song in C-sharp minor but in D-flat minor. They’re the same notes;
that
would be a joke.

The company was called for noon. Hal took everyone else to the anteroom of the ladies’ lounge for notes. The late-nineteenth-century pedigree of the ornate Colonial called for a large and elaborate ladies’ lounge. Just off the main lobby, it was as rococo as the lobby itself, with a beautiful carpet and a large oval onyx table in the center. The lavatory was discreetly through one of the four identical doors along the side walls. The gentlemen’s lounge was on the lower level, and its anteroom was as workmanlike as the ladies’ lounge was elaborate. Its marble floor and wooden benches provided a more conducive rehearsal space; it now had a rehearsal piano rolled into a corner. The ladies’ lounge provided a more comfortable space for notes. Chairs were at a premium, but Ethel Shutta, as senior member, commandeered a nice one for herself. When she was called out of the note session for a message, Hal Hastings got up from the floor and took her chair. Upon her return, she pointed right at him and said, “Out!” He obliged.

Hal Prince announced to the company that there would be an intermission on Monday. Although there was no perfect place for it, he had decided, and Michael concurred, that it would come immediately after “Too Many Mornings.” From a timing standpoint, this made sense; it came at about two-thirds of the way through the evening. The song was a passionate statement of Ben’s regret at having lost Sally many years earlier, but the staging was simple and beautiful. It would make for a quiet end to the act. Both Sally and Young Sally are onstage listening to Ben, and during the course of the song Young Sally actually comes into his arms and kisses him, while Sally mimics the embrace standing a few feet away. Margot Travers, in her long slinky black gown, swept in in front, while Buddy, from a perch high up on a platform, sees his wife in Ben’s arms for the first time. Hal said they would work out the logistics later on the stage, but it was definitely going in on Monday.

It was time for small fixes. Here are several: