Victoria Clark takes over leading duties for Bernadette Peters from the 2011 Broadway revival of Folliesand brings with her a huge chunk of the New York cast including Jan Maxwell, Ron Raines, Danny Burstein, Jayne Houdyshell, and Elaine Paige, to the Ahmanson Theatre for a special Los Angeles engagement. The spectacle is a feast for the eyes and no diamond is left unturned in its quest for opulence while indulging in roads not taken in our youth.
The twenty-person pit fills the house with Stephen Sondheim’s Tony-winning musical as the luxurious ashen-colored curtain is delicately raised to reveal Derek McLanes’ towering and regally dilapidated Weismann Theatre. In slo-motion, starlets of yesterday and their much younger, elegantly adorned shadows fill the scaffolds and stage of their old haunt, as it nears its extinction. The distinguished ladies are all former chorus reuniting for one last hurrah. The gathering provides the framework for an unfinished love quadrilateral, or so it’s imaged to be by some.
Told in flashbacks, we segue between the past and present of former roommates Sally (Clark; Lora Lee Gayer as the younger) and Phyllis (Maxwell; Kirsten Scott as the younger) and their suitors Benjamin (Raines; Nick Verina) and Buddy (Burstein; Christian Delcroix). Sally decides to marry Buddy, but it’s Benjamin she’s convinced was her destiny. Ornately bejeweled chorus girls mingle about the stage like ghosts and even interact with their older reflections in a striking dance.
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| Read more about John Carroll here |
Follies is about muscle memory and even with the lapse of decades, seeing someone from your past can flood you with not only those powerful feelings that have never seemed to have gone away, but also the delusions we conned ourselves into believing in the first place. It’s why it’s so easy to romanticize the past, as well as the future. So much more weighs on the moment and “the folly of youth in believing love can see you through.”
Extravagance is in abundance with the detailed and luminous costumes of Gregg Barnes providing a shimmer to the breathtaking, yet run-down set. One flawless scene change unassumingly drops the curtain behind the four principals only to then reveal an enormous, elaborate feathered tunnel within seconds. The backdrop is the “Loveland” they walk through one last time where romance and youth are eternal, before they finally deal with reality. When Clark sings, “It’s like I’m losing my mind, you said you loved me, or were you being kind,” she pretty much brings the house down. Some of the songs reached a popularity beyond the musical such as “Losing My Mind,” “Broadway Baby,” and “I’m Still Here.” Follies plays until June 9th. You can buy tickets here. You can read about hottie John Carroll from the ensemble here.
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