STILL HERE, STILL A JEWEL: FOLLIES AT CARNEGIE HALL
Jennifer Holliday, Kate Baldwin, Michael Berresse, Ted Chapin, Kurt Peterson and Joey Chancey's 30-piece orchestra lead a gorgeous night of ghosts, fantasy and remembrance.
It has been quite a year for Stephen Sondheim fans in New York. Quite a couple of years actually. Since Sondheim’s death in November of 2021, we’ve had revivals of Company, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along—which just won 4 Tonys—as well as Sondheim’s last new show, Here We Are, with book writer David Ives.
Last fall also saw a delightful concert version of Sondheim’s The Frogs at Lincoln Center’s spectacular Rose Theater, hosted by Nathan Lane, and also revised by him, in a form that I think makes a pretty convincing case for trying to mount the show again. Next week Lincoln Center is also presenting a concert version of A Little Night Music.
And tonight Carnegie Hall presented a one night concert version of Follies, by some accounts Sondheim’s greatest work (including apparently Sondheim himself). A fund raiser for the off-Broadway Transport Group Theatre Company—whose artistic director Jack Cummings III announced before the show began that Carnegie Hall would now be its new home—and hosted by original Young Ben Kurt Peterson and Ted Chapin, whose book Everything was Possible chronicles the story of the making of Follies, the show was an often breathtaking reminder of just how much Sondheim and his collaborators (including book writer James Goldman, director Hal Prince, co-director and choreographer Michael Bennett, and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick), really did make everything possible.
Here’s five moments from a glorious night of ghosts and loss and memories.
WOW THAT SCORE, THAT ORCHESTRA
Conductor Joey Chancey’s 30-piece orchestra for the concert alone made for an extraordinary evening. Has the Follies overture ever had more cinematic flair, the timpani and brass announcing something grand beginning, and yet also something dusty, aged. Immediately we shift to woodwinds keening like they will again a few years later for Sondheim and Prince’s Sweeney, but here giving more a sense of fantasy ballet, which builds with the introduction of lush waltz-like strings and the child-like innocent sounds of a xylophone.
Sondheim’s score and Tunick’s orchestrations allowed for so many rich moments. Like pianist P. Jason Yarcho’s inspired accompaniment to Jennifer Holliday’s brilliant “I’m Still Here,” which transported the song out of its cavernous abandoned theater setting to the sort of dimly-lit bourbon-soaked late night lounge set perfect for its story. Or the driving Big Band sound of Alexandra Billings’ “The Story of Lucy and Jessie,” which was absolutely red hot (and so was she). Or the operatic “One More Kiss,” with its beautifully emotive strings and the kind of magical opening moment that you might find in Wagner. (Singers Mikaela Bennett and Harolyn Blackwell just crushed it, too.)
One of the joys of the score, really, is how many different styles and genres of music it includes. And it was clear the orchestra delighted in the opportunity.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF DELUSION
For me watching a Sondheim show is always a bit of a journey to other Sondheim shows. Norm Lewis and Nikki Renée Daniels’ “Too Many Mornings” brings me back to the sound and story of Giorgio and Clara’s “Happiness” in Passion.
(There’s no clips of the show at this point, but try this version from Audra McDonald and Nathan Gunn, next to Melissa Erico and Ryan Silverman’s “Happiness”.)
“Waiting for the Girls Upstairs” is Saturday Night perfected. “The Right Girl” has moments that feel very West Side Story. “Don’t Look at Me” seems almost like a mirror image of “Ah, Miss” from Sweeney, with the two characters begging each other to look at them.
But the thing most striking tonight was just how much Sondheim loves a story about delusion. Almost much every Sondheim show—Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Passion, Here We Are, Road Show, Saturday Night, Merrilly We Roll Along, Gypsy, Company, Into the Woods, in its own way West Side Story—turns on the idea of characters living in a fantasy from which they must wake (or die).
Follies is in many ways the most extraordinary of the bunch (although Gypsy is a pretty close second). The narrative completely breaks down in the final half hour to give way to each of the main characters getting a chance to live out and/or confront the lies they’re living in.
The benefit made the wonderful choice of having original Young Ben Kurt Peterson do Older Ben’s final number (complete with holding original Older Ben John McMartin’s cane). Peterson’s a lot older than the character at this point, but that only deepened both the sense of fantasy and then tragedy of the song. By the end he had me in tears.
THAT DANCE
While the show was mostly a concert, it did include two dance numbers—the tap number “Who’s That Woman?”, with original Michael Bennett choreography restaged by his assistant Mary Jane Houdina, and “The Right Girl,” with choreography by Houdina based on Bennett’s original staging.
Both numbers were fantastic, but my God was the choreography exceptional in “The Right Girl.” A couple weeks ago I interviewed the creators of the new musical Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and at one point they referenced Carl Stalling’s Looney Tunes orchestrations, which so perfectly mirrored every single action happening onscreen. In “The Right Girl,” performer Michael Berresse is basically asked to do the opposite; every single note in certain sections requires a move or gesture. It’s a dazzling piece of work, delivered with precision and fire.
Gene Nelson did the song in the original Broadway version. Here’s his performance.
CHICAGO
Rather than your standard concert version, in which a show is performed in its entirety, just mostly standing in place before music stands, Follies made the choice to have Chapin and Peterson speak between songs, sharing stories and setting up each next number. It was a little jarring at first, I think largely because the show didn’t open with that but rather had the great Hal Linden address the audience as Dmitri Weisman, as in the normal production. And the moment was electric.
But as the conceit settled in, it worked very well. Chapin and Peterson have that same love for this show shared by everyone in attendance, and great stories to boot.
And once Follies entered into its second act fantasia, that addition of narration between numbers highlighted just how much another great show, Kander & Ebb’s Chicago, which debuted 4 years after Follies in 1975, is like a sister show to it. There’s that same core idea of deluded characters imagining themselves as stars on stage; that wonderful musical pastiche style.
“The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues” and “Losing My Mind” especially feel like they could slide so naturally into Chicago (though “Losing My Mind” may need some little wrinkle or bit of mustard on the pitch).
MAKING SPACE FOR THE BEAUTIFUL
Speaking of “Losing My Mind,” Kate Baldwin’s performance was one of the show’s greatest moments. (Others that I haven’t already mentioned: Jennifer Holliday making a meal of every syllable of “I’m Still Here”; Santino Fontana pattering a mile a minute in “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues”; Beth Leavel’s furious “Could I Leave You?”; Fernell Horgan, Olivia Elease Hardy, Nina White and Miguel Gil from Kimberly Akimbo doing “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow”. I could go on…)
Baldwin delivered the number with so much trust, taking her time, often keeping things small and crisp where others go big. Her patience with the song and with her own instincts drew us into a different kind of experience of it, one where instead of being knocked over by the power of the emotions of the song, we were allowed on the journey with her, and got to see and feel all its specific moments and colors.
It’s a distinctly different talent to create a moment like this on its own, rather than in the course of a narrative. There were any number of times in the show where we got to see actors do that so well, like Norm Lewis and Nikki Renée Daniels on “Too Many Mornings” and Katie Finneran and Marc Kudisch’s “Don’t Look at Me.” In both cases, as soon as they came on stage they took a beat to look at each other. It was never more than an instant, and yet in both cases it immediately created out of nothing a magical space for their story.
I went looking to see if Baldwin had done “Losing My Mind” before and stumbled upon a recent concert reading she did of Little Women. If you want to know what it felt like to hear Baldwin tonight, just pay attention to the castmate sitting behind her as she sings this song.
There were really so many moments like this tonight, so many opportunities not only to be swept away by the show and its creators but to relish the incredible group of performers that the Transport Group brought together for it.
In the end, the irony of Follies—not the brutal form found in Sondheim’s shows but the generous irony of the man himself—is that while its story is about confronting one’s illusions, the show itself is a celebration of performers who have spent their lives conjuring them up.
And rather than foolish, how lucky we feel to watch them once more stand on an empty stage, nothing in hand but their own talent, the music, and one another, and bless and break our hearts.
If you’d like to support the work of the Transport Group and their mission to celebrate classic musical theater and create new musical theater, click here.
Next week: A Little Night Music!