Customer Reviews

Follies (Highlights from the 1971 Original Broadway Cast)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I admit it. I love Follies, and have three recordings of it - this original Broadway recording, the single CD version of the 1987 London recording, and the double CD New Jersey 1998 recording. This latter recording is possibly the finest, being the most complete, and also including some extra tracks. However, it seems to be no longer available from amazon.com.

So to the recording at hand. The original cast, and to an extent then, the definitive recording. Well, it would be if there were more of the music on here, but what there is just happens to be pure class.

Alexis Smith and Dorothy Collins give up great performances as the two leading Follies girls. They are ably supported by their husbands, Gene Nelson and John McMartin.

Standing above the rest of the supporting cast is Yvonne de Carlo (best remembered as Lily Munster) with the song written especially for her, I'm Still Here. She sings it surprisingly pacily compared to the other available recordings that I know of. As the intended artist, we must assume that this is the definitive reading.

The other Follies ladies all give good performances, but as has been said by other reviewers, this cast recording is sadly incomplete.

Well, OK, so what if it is? As an introduction to this great work, full of rich pastiche numbers, clever lyrics, and towards the end the heartbreaking Losing My Mind, this is a good place to start....

If you cannot find the 1998 New Jersey recording, then this is the next best thing.

I was privileged to see Follies in its initial Broadway run three times, including the most memorable and emotional closing night I have ever spent in a Broadway theatre. Follies remains my favorite Sondheim musical (and Sondheim remains my favorite Broadway composer) even though I admit that those who consider Sweeney Todd his masterpiece certainly have good reasons for doing so. The Follies "highlight" original cast album - funny it wasn't released that way - it was released simply as "the cast album" - is a bittersweet experience; to this day, I regret as do other reviewers here that the producers could not see their way to releasing a two-disc complete recording. It's not so much the numbers that were completely left out as the songs that were butchered and cut to their bare essentials that one regrets most. I can live without "Loveland", but the loss of almost half of the lyrics to "I'm Still Here" and "Broadway Baby" are omissions that have puzzled me since the day this abortion of a cast album (as my ex-boyfriend called it at the time) was released. Although most of this has already been said, the main reason I wanted to add my two-cents was to trumpet the song that for some reason is one of the least mentioned but, for me, the most impressive. "Too Many Mornings' is, to me, both lyrically and musically the most touching, heartbreaking and emotionally potent song that Mr. Sondheim ever wrote. The sentiment behind the lyric is one that makes me literally choke up with tears and is still capable - 34 years after I first heard it - of making me break out in goose bumps. "Two many mornings, waking and pretending I reach for you, thousands of mornings, dreaming of my girl. All that time, wasted, merely passing through, time I could have spent, so content, wasting time with you..." To me, this song captured the essence of what the show was really about - the heartache of waking up one day, irreversibly older, and finding that you didn't do with your life anything that you dreamed of or idealized in your younger days. As I recall John McMartin remarking on a TV talk show just a few days after Follies ended it's Broadway run, "It's a very painful, tragic show to watch unfold, and the more I am privileged to work with this material, the more I get out of it". The deceptively simple book of this show masked the powerful emotional punch of all that it really had to say. I understood when I was 17 (which I was in 1971) that this was a melancholy and achingly poignant show; time has only deepened and expanded the emotional experience that this recording grants with every listen.

Okay, I know that it is truncated. I know that it is not digital. But it is the version with Sondheim's original cast, and the cohesiveness and unity of the original cannot be matched. Although I also love "Follies in Concert", it is disjointed and some of the performers do not compare favorably with the originals (with the exception of Stritch's "Broadway Baby"-that is brilliant!)Ultimately the concert version fails, but the original cast album satisfies in every way. I know to some that this statement is heresy, but I must express my true feelings.

Like watching Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" -- another masterpiece truncated in the name of crass commercialism -- one cannot but feel regret that the unbutchered version will never be experienced. Many later versions have been recorded, with the full score -- but they all have the feeling of what they in essence were -- concert performances by disparate performers. This original cast gives the definitive performance of every number Capitol deigned to include: and butchered though the form of the score may be, none of the later, fuller recordings captures the complexity, regret, lushness and sarcasm that this does. All things considered, I have several of the recordings, but the others are more "archival" -- I turn to THIS recording, still, when I want to experience this brilliant musical. And as another reviewer has aptly noted, this version, much more than later ones, bears repeated hearings. In fact they make you love it all the more. So -- yes -- flaws and all -- FIVE STARS!

FOLLIES is one of the grandest of Broadway musicals. The original production was a financial and critical disappointment, though quickly the musical gained a cult following thanks to the cast album that was left behind.

The story concerns the reunion of the "Weismann Follies", a troupe of players who performed between the two wars, brought back together 30 years later for a get-together when the theatre they once called home is to be torn down for a parking-lot.

The cast is led by veteran Hollywood stars Alexis Smith, Dorothy Collins and Gene Nelson, with Broadway veteran John McMartin. Others in the incantory cast include Mary McCarty (MISS LIBERTY, CHICAGO), Fifi D'Orsay, Ethel Shutta (JENNIE), Yvonne De Carlo, Ethel Barrymore Colt and Arnold Moss. Justine Johnson and Victoria Mallory (A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC) also feature.

Dorothy Collins is breathtaking in the role of Sally Durante Plummer (the role has been coveted by many Broadway diva's including Barbara Cook and Judy Kaye), and sings gorgeous versions of the show's two pivotal ballads, "In Buddy's Eyes" and "Losing My Mind". Alexis Smith plays the cynical and jaded Phyllis Rogers Stone, and sings the bitter, barb-choked "Could I Leave You?" and "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" perfectly.

Justine Johnson plays the aging opera diva Heidi Schiller, and sings the heartbreaking "One More Kiss" in a duet with Victoria Mallory as the younger Heidi. Mary McCarty is a delight as the scene-stealing Stella Deems, and leads the girls in the manic 'mirror number' "Who's That Woman?". Yvonne De Carlo belts out the anthemic "I'm Still Here" for all its worth.

FOLLIES is one of Stephen Sondheim's most intriguing and rewarding scores, and the original cast album is a must-own for all Broadway fans.

After his brilliant score for "Company" in 1970, Stephen Sondheim composed the lovely score for "Follies". Unfortunately, the production did not recoup it's investment due to its high operating costs and, possibly, that the musical's concept was a little ahead of its time.

Years later, however, the highly romantic score is still considered, by many, to be one of Mr. Sondheim's best.

Standout tracks include:

Ah! Paris/Broadway Baby
In Buddy's Eyes
I'm Still Here [my personal favorite]
Too Many Mornings
Losing My Mind [deeply moving]
The Story Of Lucy & Jesse

While the "Follies In Concert" cd provides a complete look at this incredible score, this "highlights" showcases the best parts from the production's original company.

A must for collections!

Stephen Sondheim was still a relatively young man whose career was just taking off when FOLLIES premiered in 1971. As the last in a long line of cast albums from Capitol, it was given a routine record production. But FOLLIES was an enormously complex show: people still debate its merits some 30 years later. While it may have been a sound business decision to limit the recording to a single Lp, it is unforgivable that better use was not made of the available time. A little more dialogue, some electronic adjustment so we could tell when the "ghosts" were singing, the transition into (and out of) the "Loveland" sequence, and coaxing sharper performances from the cast might have resulted in a recording that captured the spirit of the show better. Still, it remains an outstanding score (one can't call it one of Sondheim's "best" because all his scores show him at his best!) and moments captured here have never been surpassed: Dorothy Collins' "In Buddy's Eyes"; Ethel Shutta's "Broadway Baby", Yvonne De Carlo's "I'm Still Here" and Alexis Smith smoldering "Could I Leave You." For the Cd Angel has comissioned new and insightful liner notes, but unfortunately they do not reprint the very detailed synopsis that was included with the original Lp release. The sound has been "fixed" as best it could be but much distortion remains. If forced to choose just one FOLLIES album I would have to go with RCA's 1985 concert recording, but the original cast album, despite its many flaws, is still worth having.

FOLLIES, more than any other Sondheim cast album, presents the fascinating question why Sondheim's original casts always seem the perfect embodiment of their characters--far more than is so of the casts of the shows of other writers. One answer may be that Sondheim writes with such depth, substance, and particularity, that his songs require meticulously chosen casts, meticulously and intensely rehearsed. Other musicals's characters, no matter how pleasing the songwriting, are never as dimensional and particular, so the songs can be performed by a wider variety of performer. It may also be that, in fashioning the very first version of the musical, the creators take a much more intense, closer, involvement in every step of creation, including that of the cast album.
That may explain why later FOLLIES albums, though notable for the inclusion of new Sondheim bonbons, and some terrific performances here and there, have never lived up to the power of the original.
The original FOLLIES surpasses the single flaw of the lack of a full score and some non-sequitor transitions, by the extraordinary lack of distance between performer and character, character and song.
Though this perfect album would have been more perfect if it had been a double disc from the start, all those complaints in the other reviews are justified only by the tin ears and tin hearts of the reviewers.

"Follies" is Sondheim's masterpiece in my eyes. It has a brilliant mix of classic musical comedy songs ("Broadway Baby", "I'm Still Here") and his own distinctive style ("The Road You Didn't Take", "Could I Leave You?". It also has a brilliant, if short, libretto by James Goldman. (Remember- Breavity is the soul of wit). Harold Prince's magnificent staging and Michael Bennet's choreography added to its brillance. The wonderful Dorothy Collins singing "Loosing My Mind", Alexis Smith in "Thr Story of Lucy and Jessie", John McMartin in "Live, Laugh and Love" and Gene Nelson in "The God Why Don't you Love me Blues" are all wonderful.
Now, I've gushed over the show. It's time to complain. This well produced recording is all too short. Why, if we could have gotten a two disc set, although expensive for Capitol Records, would have preserved this original production and original company.
"Follies" is my favorite Sondhiem show. This is the deffinate, if abraidged, recording.

I simply dont know where to begin my review of this wonderful recording.There is so much that i want to say.It was this "brief shining moment" which first opened my eyes to Stephen Sondheim's genius. I have enjoyed other musicals by him in the past but none has impressed me more than this, indeed i have grown to love them more because of their similarities to Follies. This show has everything that is a trademark of Sondheim, the confusing, unusual, but deeply involving and meaningful plotline, the musical power of Sweeney Todd, the light humour of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, the lovely chorus moments and uniquely beautiful solos reminiscent of Company, and the lyrical genius of A Little Night Music, Gypsy etc.Each song stands on its own and is a tribute to the eternal message of Follies, that success and achievements are fleeting and that it is impossible to hold on to dreams and illusions forever. I can imagine the show was incoherent, even unnatractive on the stage but it certainly does not come across as such on this captivating recording. At first i was merely intrigued but after a few listens i was completely mesmirized. Oh those lyrics! They have almost convinced me that Sondheim is the greatest lyricist Broadway has ever known, greater even than Cole Porter or Larry Hart. But enough of this, let us move on to what it is that makes this recording great.
One of the most attractive things about the score is that each character becomes a star for his or her number there are in a sense no main characters; there are the four central figures but everyone is around them is equally important. What would Follies be without that classic tribute to the life of a struggling actor, Broadway Baby, sung with style and zest by Ethel Shutta in the role of Hattie? Without Mary McCarthy as Stella's emotional, soaring rendering of Who's That Woman, which can perhaps ber regarded as the major showstopper? Without Fifi D'Orsay's wonderfully gay and bewitiching version of Ah Paris, and most of all without Im Still Here, which is possibly my favorite song on the recording? This wonderfully truthful and bitingly ironic description of show business, sung with rye, bitter humour by Yvonne de Carlo, never fails to raise great emotions within me. One More Kiss is a sweetly pretty tune which hearkens back to an earlier era of musical theater and the frolicking love songs sung by the four protagonists' young counterparts, (You're Gonna Love Tomorrow and Love Will See Us Through) make for wonderful listening. But this recording would still be nothing without the magnificent performances of the four leads listed below in order of preference:
Dorothy Collins-Can anyone ever sing Losing My Mind as convincinly as she does? Hundreds have tried,(its one of Sondheim's most famous songs) hundreds have failed. In Buddy's Eyes is equally beautifully and there is something wonderfully pathetic about her opening moment, Dont Look At Me.
Alexis Smith-Could I Leave You is perhaps the cleverest song in the musical and this lady certainly knows what its about. Her Story Of Lucy And Jessie is equally good if a little too short. All in all she is given too little time on this abriged recording.
John McMartin-The Road You Didn't Take, could anything ever be more bitterly sarcastic? And his finale, Live,Laugh and Love is very well rendered.
Gene Nelson-I dont particularly like Nelson as he does not in my opinion have enough of a voice to sustain a singing part particularly a solo and he is given 2! The God-Why-Dont-You-Love-Me Blues is fairly well done but The Right Girl is pretty awful. Of course it is the number these four sing together Waiting For The Girls Upstairs which really allows them all to explore their considerable talents and they work very well together; the sections of dialogue/song are incredably effective.
Overall this recording, while it is incomplete and in consequence not satisfying enough for every real fan, is an essential edition to every collectors collection, if only because it is so unique and inspired. It has stood the test of time remarkably well and will hopefully continue to enchant listeners for decades.