Follies

                                                                                                                            It must be difficult to find shows where the director can include a large number of participants without making the stage overcrowded. Carole did manage to achieve that goal; I counted nearly 30 in the cast, which is a huge number on a small stage with a fixed set, so well done to all as the area never appeared too crowded.

I found the Story Line confusing and have to admit that I still don’t understand Act 2. It came over as a random selection of songs with very little reason to hang them together and I congratulate the director for making a production out of the material she was given. For the many people, like me, who have never seen or heard of Follies, it seems a very weak story line about four ex-performers, two married couples, who arrange to hold a re-union 30 years on with a group of their old show buddies that they haven’t seen in years.

Good use was made of the front of the auditorium when all the old stagers arrived for the anniversary celebrations. Follies is a show that incorporates a large number of not very well known songs, over 20, from the pen of Stephen Sondheim.

The small group of musicians were well blended making for an excellent accompaniment and, on the whole, the singing was good, with many harmonies, but one or two of the solo numbers came over as slightly out of the range of Sue Knight (Sally) who compensated with excellent acting.

The Principals were, in the main, good. Gudrun Lehmann-Shanks (Phyllis) has a lovely voice with a great range and she delivered a good characterisation.  Trevor Coffey (Buddy) had just the right amount of pathos for his character opening the second half with a great rendition of ‘The Right Girl’ and Simon Smith (Ben) was convincing in his part, as the generally troubled man who felt he took the wrong paths in life 30 years earlier. His rendition of ‘The Road you Didn’t Take’ was quite haunting and he lead an excellent finale, with the entire company, singing ’Live, Laugh, and Love’. My main criticism of the principals was a lack of passion and emotion physically, when pleading for love or berating for lack of it. 

The acting, from everyone, would have benefited from some change of pace although I am aware that lack of space made that rather difficult. The initial opening gave the audience the pleasure of watching some really nice ballet with a couple of them up on point and this was followed by the entire company, led by Jimmy Lynch singing and dancing to ‘Beautiful Girls’. All the choreography was well thought out bearing in mind that two thirds of the cast were portraying veterans who had not performed for 30 years. The most outstanding number of the entire show was performed to ‘Who’s that Woman’, by Lesley Mercer who sang and lead a tap dance routine which outshone everything else. It was brilliant and so unexpected. The other ten members of the cast were the “Ghosts” of the past depicting our principals in their youth. They were all exceedingly good in their roles spending a great deal of time on stage with very little to say. Not easy!  

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