FOLLIES

No single artist looms larger over the musical theatre canon than Stephen Sondheim. Across the second half of the last century, his work pushed the form and explored radical ideas of musical and narrative storytelling, with many now counted among the greatest works of musical theatre. Recently, the National Theatre in London took up the challenge of staging one of Sondheim’s most ambitious works, the 1971 musical ‘Follies’, and Australian audiences have the chance to see this acclaimed production themselves as part of the 2018 National Theatre Live season.

Set in New York in 1971, ‘Follies’ captures one night in the soon-to-be demolished Weisman Theatre. Before the building is torn down, stars from its legendary Follies review come together to reminisce. They share drinks, tell stories and revisit old routines, but the ghosts of the past are always haunting them - who they were, who they wanted to be, and who they eventually became.

‘Follies’ is one of Sondheim’s least-staged works, mostly because of its enormously ambitious scale. At two and a half hours without an interval, and requiring a cast of almost 40 performers, it needs an infrastructure many companies simply cannot support. It’s also the first time Sondheim experimented with the idea of a musical without a narrative (something he would later perfect with ‘Company’), which means that unlike the more commercial musicals, ‘Follies’ demands attention and engagement from its audience. This is what makes it an extraordinary work: a dense and rich meditation on age, growing old, the ghost of the past and abandoning your dreams. Sondheim’s score plays with pastiche, drawing on the many musical forms of the Follies, mixing vaudeville and Broadway ballads with his own exacting, detailed style. James Goldman’s book holds the work together, offering each character their moment to not only shine but to break down. Sally Durant (Imelda Staunton) and Phyllis Rogers (Janie Dee) are the closest thing ‘Follies’ has to protagonists, and their reunion at this party sparks off old affections and deep rivalries, especially around Phyllis’ husband Ben (Philip Quast). Their past selves wander around the theatre like ghosts, always present and watching, and this clever dramaturgical device allows us to see where they’ve come from, and how very unfulfilled they now are. Unlike many musicals, the characters of ‘Follies’ aren’t young and fresh and optimistic. We are seeing them at the end of their lines, and the deep regret they have at not following on the dreams and promises they spun dancing and singing in this very hall is heartbreaking to watch.