Hal cleaned up some of the very end of the chaos. Then Michael restaged the curtain calls, which hadn’t been touched since the quick bows thrown together in Boston. He made them short, starting with the memory figures, which were followed by the present-day characters. Many of the memory principals had to make quick changes out of their red Follies costumes into their black-and-whites, but there wasn’t enough time for the entire chorus to make the change. Some weren’t included in the downstage bows at all. All five stars came from way upstage center right down front, in order, ending with Alexis who was consistently getting the biggest hand. It didn’t look like
Follies
would ever get a set of bows equal to the theatrical ingenuity of
Company’
s.
By the end of the afternoon, Hal made the decision to invite the critics in beginning on Wednesday night, since Gene could be expected to stay at least through Thursday. He wasn’t sure he would make this public, but when word came back to Mary Bryant that Clive Barnes, the chief drama critic of the
New York Times,
could only come to the matinee, Hal decided he would inform the entire company after the performance on Tuesday night.
There was another issue developing, so quietly that few were aware of it—or they had conveniently forgotten it. It was Alexis’s new dress for “Lucy and Jessie,” and she certainly hadn’t forgotten about it. The dress had arrived at the theater for its final fitting, and when Alexis emerged from wardrobe wearing it and walked onto the stage, she looked like a very happy camper indeed. I don’t know what conversations or collaborations had gone into it, but finally Flossie got it right. This one was a bright fire-engine red with a flattering square neckline with loose ruffles around the back. It had mid-length sleeves with ruffles from the elbows and large beaded stripes making an “X” across the front. Three layers of long fringe started at the hip line above the left leg, each a slightly different shade of red, and hung from the waist down to her right knee, angling slightly upward. After showing the dress all around, Alexis went through the staging of “Lucy and Jessie,” to everyone’s delight. This was clearly the dress she should have had from the start—sexy, flattering, surprising, and utterly suitable to the energetic choreography that Michael had created. And, of course, it was even redder—was it possible?—than her party outfit. The arrival of the new dress also had one unexpected effect. Suddenly, but subtly, it seemed as if the show had become Alexis’s. And it had. For the frumpy Sally to discard her pink party dress and step into a floor-length clingy beaded gown and sing a torch song was dramatically stunning, to be sure. But for the cold, regal woman who spit out acid remarks all night long to emerge in red fringe, revealing a terrific pair of legs, and dance up a storm—well, that was revelatory. And it had turned out that Alexis was also a really good actress, well able to get laughs, be hard-edged when called upon (as in “Could I Leave You?”), and then be able to revel in the fun of “Lucy and Jessie.” Dorothy Collins was more than good, and everyone agreed that “Losing My Mind” was the emotional highlight of the evening, but when it came to pure showbiz, it was the sexy movie lady in the red dresses who won the day—and stole the show. From Tuesday night’s performance on, “Lucy and Jessie” was just that much more glittery.
Tuesday’s performance, completely sold out, went extremely well. Gene gave a fine performance, and at the end there were more than the usual bravos, and most of the audience was on its feet. As soon as the final curtain came down, Hal walked out onstage and addressed the company. By now word had filtered through the company about Gene’s son, so they were expecting some kind of announcement. He explained the situation and told them: “Some of the most important critics are coming to tomorrow’s matinee and evening, and to the performances on Friday and Saturday and Sunday. So we are really having six openings over the next six performances. I wanted to tell you all this now so you could go home tonight and rest up.”
Wednesday was a threshold day for
Follies.
Hal tried to be vague about which critics were coming when, but word began to spread that the
Times
would be at the matinee. Even the most experienced performers can panic when they know the Grand Pooh-Bah is coming, and experience had already shown that some of the performers, Yvonne and Gene heading the list, could be inconsistent, even sloppy, under pressure. And despite the good word of mouth and the interest shown by the press, a positive review in the
Times
was still the undeniable key to box office success. Without it, a show could conceivably survive, but with a ringing endorsement from New York’s newspaper of record, a show had all-but-assured hit status. The sense was that
Follies
really needed the
Times.
But there was a problem: Clive Barnes hadn’t liked
Company.
On the other hand, in Boston, the critics who hadn’t liked
Company
loved
Follies,
and vice versa. And Barnes hadn’t been the only New York critic who didn’t like
Company.
It had won critics’ prizes, and walked off with seven all-important Tony Awards. No one knew whether Barnes had felt like an odd man out, but some of the more astute members of the
Follies
crew had sensed trouble. There had been that crack about James Goldman in his review of
Abelard and Heloise,
and since then, in an essay, Barnes had made a general comment against the whole notion of nostalgia. All
Follies
could do was hope for the best.
Clive Barnes arrived shortly before the matinee began. I had never seen the man before, and he certainly didn’t look like what I’d imagined New York’s most powerful critic to look like. Short, somewhat overweight, sloppily dressed, with long and untidy-looking hair, he held his head slightly cocked to one side. Once he sat down, he buried his head in his program. He had been informed of the situation with Gene’s son, and looked to see if there were any inserts in the Playbill. He didn’t look particularly happy to be there; throughout the performance, he didn’t pay attention to much that was happening onstage, nor did he take any notes. I sat in one of the side boxes, charting his every move and expression. I noted a slight smile when Ethel Shutta made her way down the rubble steps in “Beautiful Girls”; a more focused look at the stage at the end of “Who’s That Woman?”; a bigger smile during one of Dorothy’s scenes. He fanned himself with his program during “I’m Still Here” and his attention seemed to wander during many of the book scenes. I observed big yawns during “Too Many Mornings,” “In Buddy’s Eyes,” and several during “Losing My Mind.” There was no discernible difference in his expression when “Loveland” began, but he appeared attentive again during “Lucy and Jessie” through “Live, Laugh, Love” and into the chaos. As soon as the curtain fell, he was up and out of the theater. Larry Cohen, who was standing at the back and saw him leave, reported that he didn’t look very happy. Later I was told Mary Bryant phoned his office to inquire if he wanted to use any of the seats set aside for him at other previews and the opening. The response was to release all seats except the opening, that he wasn’t sure but might want to attend. Barnes then got on the phone himself to ask how Gene’s son was doing, and asked who would go on if he had to leave. He then asked, “Aren’t a lot of the dances that Gene does his own? I mean, they aren’t dances that Michael Bennett choreographed, are they?” Mary couldn’t figure out whether this indicated a bias against Michael, a nod in favor of Gene Nelson, or what. It was a mighty odd comment. As it turned out, Barnes did come back for the opening night performance, but arrived late.
The performance itself had been a bit ragged, with some bad habits reappearing due, no doubt, to nerves. Yvonne dropped whole lines—“I’ve stood on bread lines . . . ,” and “Top billing Monday . . .” It’s hard to say what kind of audience a critic should see a show with. There were groups at all the previews (theater parties are the backbone of the Broadway advance-sale business), and many of the groups are benefits. A large enough benefit audience can make for a dull crowd—one that includes too many people attending purely out of obligation to a charity or a fraternal organization. Both of Wednesday’s performances were full of such groups, and they weren’t all that responsive. Other critics, including those from
Time
and
Newsweek,
came to the Wednesday evening performance, which was marginally better than the afternoon’s, although now Yvonne did the song perfectly and messed up whole stretches of dialogue. Mary Bryant walked out of the theater in the middle of one of her botched scenes shaking her head and muttering, “I don’t believe that.”
The leads settled into what would become their individual matinee-day routines between shows. Alexis took a nap, Dorothy stayed quietly in her room, Yvonne went to Gallagher’s and ate steak. Now that Barnes had come, and knowing that we would all have to wait five days to learn what he thought, everyone was feeling helpless and uncertain. Flossie Klotz, waiting patiently for a man’s costume that was late arriving from Eaves, said to me, “Don’t go into show business. You surely have other ways of making a living, and this business really isn’t worth it.” Dorothy had a blowup with Alexis, who she felt was being bossy during one of Hal’s note sessions. Near half-hour, Sheila Smith was going up and down the halls checking to see if the women she understudied had made it back. Although there was a sign-in sheet by the stage door that every member of the cast was supposed to initial upon entry, many was the time that someone forgot. Then the stage managers would have to call on the intercom. Sheila obviously felt the old-fashioned method of peering into doors was the best, and most fail-safe, way. The one good piece of news was that Gene’s son’s condition had stabilized, and it looked as if Gene wouldn’t be leaving.
In addition to two critics’ performances, on Wednesday, after the evening performance, there was a joint photo shoot for
Time
and
Newsweek,
both of which were planning to do big stories. Gathering the company on the stage following a performance with full costumes and lighting is an expensive undertaking, necessitating overtime for virtually everyone, and the magazines were picking up the tab because they needed their own posed color shots. They couldn’t have held the shoot during the day, because Hal and Michael guarded their daytime rehearsal time jealously and weren’t willing to give over valuable work time for publicity. And the magazines wouldn’t accept the color shots that had already been taken by the show’s official photographers, Martha Swope and Van Williams, or by any of the other publications that had dispatched their own photographers. In addition, now that Alexis’s Follies dress had arrived, this was the first opportunity to do a photo call with the entire company in their final costumes. Martha Swope and Van Williams came again, but since it was the magazines that were paying for the call, Mary Bryant and her staff made it very clear that they got priority. Before the call began, Fritz asked me to stand by the stage door and greet Elaine Stritch who was coming over following her performance in
Company.
When she arrived, I stuck out my hand, introduced myself, and said that Fritz had asked me to greet her. These were her drinking days, and she looked at me and said, “I don’t give a fuck who you are.” I simply escorted her in through the pass door and out into the house. Never mind.
Whenever a weekly newsmagazine decides to do a story about Broadway, the entire street is thrilled. To have both of the biggies focus on
Follies
was extraordinary. And there was a rumor going around that
Time’
s might be a cover story. For that, they would need a special shot. Their photographer assembled several poses as potential covers. He posed Suzanne Briggs in her large butterfly showgirl costume on one of the higher stage levels, with Alexis and Dorothy seated below in their Follies dresses, and between them Yvonne, in her one and only costume. The
Newsweek
crew designed some poses of their own, one with Alexis standing among the Dresden showgirls from “Loveland,” and another with six of the “black-and-white” showgirls grouped around the five principals, all in their party clothes. Many other posed color shots were taken that night, some of which did indeed end up in various publications: Ethel Shutta with a couple of showgirls behind her, Yvonne dancing around, showing her legs. Many of the numbers as well as the entire Loveland sequence were run, in costume but to piano accompaniment (the orchestra was released after the performance), which provided good opportunities for color shots.
Time
went ahead with its story, and it made the cover. But to the consternation of some, they decided to use a solo shot of Alexis in her fringe dress kicking up her heels, with the caption: “That Old Magic Relights Broadway.”
Newsweek,
it turned out, had also been planning a cover story, although they were keeping very quiet about it. Their planned cover was also a solo shot of Alexis, standing amid the showgirls of “Loveland.” In the end, however, they canceled their story entirely. “We didn’t do the story for a variety of reasons—far too complicated to explain in a letter,” is how Osborn Elliott, editor-in-chief of
Newsweek
and an old friend of my father’s, explained in a letter when he sent me a copy of the cover that they had prepared for the story. Many of the
Newsweek
shots taken that night ended up in an article in
Show
magazine that summer, including another version of the shot of Alexis and the showgirls. Even the cover of
Show
had a shot of Alexis, this one with the dancers from “Lucy and Jessie.”
T
hursday was a true day off for everyone. Gene Nelson’s son continued to improve, and it looked as if he was out of all immediate danger. But Gene had twisted his ankle, and Virginia Sandifur was coming down with a cold. At the theater, some adjustments continued to be made on the technical side, and the stage managers used the day to organize themselves and prepare for the routine of running the show once opening night was out of the way. It had been a busy week for the stage managers.