Still, Someone Said "she's sincere...."

There was, at one time, a legendary composer of the Broadway stage; his reign spanned some five decades, though the last one produced few new works and many revivals of his earlier works. No one would ever argue that he was one of a kind and a bona fide genius of the artistic temperment. The genius produced score after score, show after show of groundbreaking theatrical art that challenged the mind and opened the soul to new visions, thought provoking debate and heart soaring emotions. Among his many plays, one seemed to stand out for having a cult following (in spite of a less than succesful initial introduction to the Broadway scene) that always dove, head first, into any debatable topic concerning the show. If the show was produced, regionally, fans traveled to see it. If a new recording of the musical was released, the cult snatched them up. At parties, backstage during plays, in theatrical classrooms and, finally, over the internet, musical theater buffs discussed, analyzed, criticized, hypothosized, debated and lauded the play itself, the productions, the recordings and, mostly, they talked about the best casting for this opera, in their minds.

FOLLIES is, once again, the subject of discussion and debate among the chatterati of the New York theater world. Chat boards at Broadwaycom, BroadwayWorldcom and TalkinBroadwaycom have been up in arms because there will be a five day production of FOLLIES, under the aegus of the Encores! Series, here in New York City. One of the oft mentioned facts of the case is that for the Encores! Series to do FOLLIES is folly, itself. The Encores! Series started with the mission statement of doing concert productions of musicals that have been seldom seen on the New York stage since their initial productions. The producers would assemble marvelous casts of New York actors and sell tickets to five performances and the audiences would come, like the thirsty to a desert oasis. In the past we have seen Christine Ebersole in LADY IN THE DARK, Tyne Daly in CALL ME MADAM, Patti LuPone and Peter Gallagher in PAL JOEY, Olympia Dukakis in 70 GIRLS 70 and, most notably, Ann Reinking and Bebe Neuwirth in the production of CHICAGO that would transfer to Broadway and run ten years (still!) and Donna Murphy in WONDERFUL TOWN, which would also transfer to Broadway for a less successful but well loved production. So, those crying out because FOLLIES is the wrong show for the series are quite in the right. After all, since moving to New York 13 years ago, I have had the chance to see FOLLIES at the Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey (a 30 minute commute) with Dee Hoty and Donna McKechnie, Kaye Ballard, Lillianne Montevecchi, Phyllis Newman and ANN freakin MILLER; I also got to see the Broadway revival starring Blythe Danner and Judith Ivey, Betty Garrett, Carol Woods, Marge Champion, Polly Bergen, Treat Williams and Gregory Harrison. In London it was Diana Rigg, Julia McKenzie and Dolores Gray (by the way, people rarely care who the men are in this piece—only the women). These are not shabby casts, folks. There have been productions of FOLLIES around this country starring the likes of Juliet Prowse, Shani Wallis, Patty Duke, Vicki Carr....oh! and let us not forget the legendary concert version of FOLLIES that started all the benefit concerts that are done, one a week, in New York today. The cast of THAT little event was (are you ready? Or do you know it by heart?) Barbara Cook and Lee Remick, George Hearn and Mandy Patinkin, Comden and Green, Lillianne Montevecchi, Phyllis Newman, Miss Elaine Stritch and the great Carol Burnett.

So. The Encores! Series is doing FOLLIES.

And the chatterati are goind KA-razy over it. There is wet dream casting being posted almost every day; and almost every day, a war of words is conducted over the internet while people argue that THEIR cast is the best one! And others who reply with questions like “Do any of you KNOW this play??!!! Have any of you READ it??!!” The debates over casting have made me laugh, laugh, laugh. The fights have made me laugh, laugh, laugh. It is absurd, to say the least; but at least they are all passionate about it.

The funniest part of the dream casting from these people is something that I have noted (and, in fact, written about) in the past: just because someone is your personal favourite, just because they have a big voice and a diva personality does NOT mean that they are right for a role. People want Audra McDonald to play Fanny in FUNNY GIRL and they want Kristin Chenoweth to play..oh..EVERYTHING!!! They want Liza Minnelli to replace Beth Leavel in THE DROWSY CHAPERONE and they want an all black production of FOLLIES. I, for one, think it is time for a little reality check. Are we to compromise the artistic intent of a work just because someone has this mad wish to hear an octogenarian sing I’M STILL HERE? Are we to completely set aside historical believability so that an African American goddess of the twenty first century can play a Jewish goddess of the American musical theater from a hundred years ago? People are so (beautifully but misguidedly, at times) devoted to their divas that they cannot see the truth!

A recent thread at one of these sites criticized a piece of gossip indicating that Catherine Zeta-Jones might do a film remake of GYPSY. Zeta, who is listed as being 37, was labeled as being too young to play Mamma Rose. People seem to have been sold this bill of goods that Mamma Rose is really GRANDMAMA ROSE. Don’t get me wrong—I saw Bernadette Peters, who is in her fifties, as Mamma Rose and she was earth shattering. But Rose Hovick was a young, vibrant woman who had a way with the men—that’s why she had so many husbands. She was in her late thirties when Louise Hovick became Gypsy Rose Lee. There isn’t a woman who has played her who was under forty!! Let’s talk about the parade of older women who have played Annie Oakley? Bernadette Peters could get away with it because she has never let the sun touch her skin and looks exactly as she did when she was twenty (better, I think). Reba is also beautifully preserved and she was so dangnab good in the part that no one cared that she is in her fifties!! Susan Lucci—fifties!! Cheryl Ladd—fifties!! There are women being cast in parts in musicals who are wrong for the roles; it is up to them to prove to the audiences that they are worth the suspension of disbelief and sometimes they do it; but sometimes it is just PATHETIC and HORRIFYING. We should have a GAme show called CAST THAT GRANDMA!

Shirley Valentine is a non musical play about a woman who is (in the script) forty two. Yet she is played by women in their seventies who have had so many facelifts that it is, actually, possible to consider they might be the correct age—if you don’t look at the talons that holding the potatoes Shirley peels to serve for dinner! There are women playing Carlotta Champion in FOLLIES that are TOO FREAKIN OLD for the part. It doesn’t matter that Ann Miller was a legend (and believe me, I was happy to get to see her live!) or that Polly Bergen is a great actress and singer; they were too old for Carlotta. When Carlotta sings I’m Still Here, it isn’t an anthem to her pacemaker.

There are people suggesting that the FOLLIES concert be made up of the remaining MGM musical stars. Are you kidding me? I, for one, loved each and every one of them. I watch the old movies and I weep because I didn’t get to photograph these people who made me happy during an unhappy childhood. I don’t want to see them in FOLLIES, though. Some fans want to see FOLLIES filmed with Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli. These two women have meant more to me than you can possibly imagine (actually, if you are a gay male, you probably can imagine) but I DON’T WANT to see them in FOLLIES. I don’t want this extraordinary work of art compromised just so that we can see two overweight women in their sixties pretend to be ten to fifteen years younger. Names being tossed around online include Debbie Reynolds (I worship the dame), Shirley MacLaine, Jane Powell, Julie Newmar, Ruta Lee, Cyd Charisse, Lena Horne; someone has even suggested having Angela Lansbury sing I’m Still Here.

Do you KNOW how much I love Angela Lansbury? I want two shoots in my career. There are a lot of people I want to photograph, don’t get me wrong. But I WANT to do shoots with Julia Roberts and Angela Lansbury. I love this woman in ways that only Buzzie from TalkinBroadway can, truly, understand. But I DON’T want to see her play Carlotta Champion. And I bet she doesn’t either. A few years ago, I would have loved to see her in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC with Julie Andrews as her daughter… but these days a revival of NIGHT MUSIC should be with Andrews as Madame Armfeldt, Ann Hathaway as Ann Egerman, Sutton Foster as Charlotte Malcolm, Shoshana Bean as Petra and, as Desiree, EITHER my idol, Annette Bening, or my friend, Donna Murphy. Wait. We were talking about FOLLIES…how did I get onto NIGHT MUSIC? It’s ADDICTIVE!!

So here it is. In spite of my love for the grande dames, for our divas, I am here to tell you about the cast of FOLLIES.

I did some research. I looked through the script (I do not have the book EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE THE BIRTH OF THE MUSICAL FOLLIES—yes, I am a gay male but I don’t have the dough to make that purchase; ps, I just had a birthday, so anyone who wants to get me a copy and inscribe it “to Ste on his 42nd birthday”, I’ll take it and cherish it) and I did an IMDB check on the ages of the women who played the parts when the play opened on Broadway in 1971. This is what I found:

The script says the women wear banners with their years on them and the years range from 1918 to 1941.

Sally Durant Plummer says she hasn’t seen New York in thirty years. The stage direction says that Young Sally was in 1940. Dorothy Collins was 45 years old when she did FOLLIES.

Phyllis Rogers Stone would have to be about the same age as Sally, give or take a couple of years. Alexis Smith was 50 years old.

A photo of Yvonne De Carlo shows her wearing a banner that says 1941 and Yvonne De Carlo was 49 in 1971. In the script it describes Carlotta as being in terrific shape for fifty.

Fifi D’Orsay wears a banner that says 1930 and she was 67 when FOLLIES opened.

I cannot make out all the numbers on Mary McCarty’s or Ethel Shutta’s banners but Mary’s was 193_ and Ethel’s was 192_ and their ages, according to IMDB, were (respectively) 48 and 75.

I always thought Heidi Schiller was the oldest of the showgirls (in the script it says she is in her 80s) but Justine Johnston was only 50!

Gene Nelson was 51 and John McMartin’s age is not given on IMDB.

So. Given those guidelines, let us look at a REALISTIC casting for FOLLIES, one that would put into play the characters and their ages, shall we?

Let’s start with Heidi Schiller, for me, the easiest role to cast. It says in the script she is in her 80s, she is a stunning soprano. It has to be Barbara Cook.

Solange La Fitte should, in a perfect world, be played by Leslie Caron. She is 75, EXTREMELY well preserved, and still working. She looks so good that her age is unfathomable. However, getting a star like Leslie Caron to come to New York from France for a five day gig doesn’t sound likely. I wouldn’t want to see an American actress attempt a bad French actress; who does that leave? There is always the slightly older force of nature, Eartha Kitt, who, at 80, puts us all to shame. There is, though, an alternative—an interesting one. An Italian woman who is 73 years old and who won the 1961 Tony award for best actress in IRMA LA DOUCE: Elizabeth Seal. What musical theater buff wouldn’t turn out for that?

If Stella Deems was fifty or nearing fifty (remember, McCarty was 48) and since there was an OBVIOUS lack of black talent in the original cast; and since this is the role the Roundabout revival used to bring in some stellar talent of the non-caucasian variety, I think they should call in Stephanie Mills. She has the voice, she has the star power and people deserve to see her work. Very Josephine Baker-esque.

Hattie Walker has been played by Ethel Shutta, Elaine Stritch, Kaye Ballard and Betty Garrett. I think we all see the writing on the wall. Debbie Reynolds is 74. Lauren Bacall is 82—a little older and with less singing talent but with two Tony awards for best actress in a musical. If you want to go with a legendary Broadway talent who is less of a household name, there is always the great Jane Connell. These are the three women I would, most, want to see interpret the song Broadway Baby.

The Whitmans are a bit of a problem for me, as I have been unable to really discern their ages! Donald Saddler and Marge Champion had to dance slowly (but beautifully!) because of her age. Mr. Saddler was given quicker movements when paired with Natalie Morosco in the Papermill version. In concert, Comden and Green didn’t dance! This will be a concert version..do they need to dance? And wouldn’t it be fun to get a couple with a history? I prefer Anita Gillette and Tony Roberts, two wonderful New York actors who appeared in THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG together. For that matter, Lucie Arnaz and Robert Klein might be fun but it’s an awfully small bit for Robert Klein to drop whatever he is doing and come to NYC. Then, there are Bonnie Franklin and Lee Roy Reams, who were in APPLAUSE together. They would be fun.

That does it, doesn’t it? That leaves us with the five big ‘uns, eh? The two couples and Carlotta.

Lemme tell ya how I see Carlotta. She is a movie star—maybe a b or c movie star but a movie star, nonetheless. She has used her looks and sex appeal to get far and she is still using her sex appeal to get what she wants—even if it is just a good time. She is a survivor, yes; but we have to remember that we are talking about an era when what a woman had to do to survive was based, mostly, on her looks. Her use of her sex appeal, at fifty, should be a little shocking, a little grotesque. Over the last twenty years of loving the musical FOLLIES, some of the women I have dreamed about seeing play Carlotta Champion have been (and think of them in their fifties, sexing it up) Ann-Margret, Joan Collins, Raquel Welch.

They will never get my ideal Carlotta Champion at Encores! They cannot get her. She is a movie star of the highest order and I just don’t see it happening.

It should be Sharon Stone. Yes. She can sing.

Since it won’t be Sharon Stone, why don’t they get Suzanne Sommers? Or how about Adrienne Barbeau? Not big enough anymore? Too much of a joke? Ok, then, let me give it to you, in all its perfection:

Lesley Ann Warren. At sixty, she looks fifty. She is also still sexy and it is an integral part of every single character she plays. She cannot be unsexed. It is a part of who she is, in all her glory. Lesley Warren IS Carlotta Champion.

Much has been said about Phyllis Rogers Stone and Sally Durant Plummer. Everyone has an opinion. They are all valid, even if they are not all correct. It is easier to cast the husbands, though—argue with me if you must but if I were Lynn Meadow I would be on the phone, right now, with James Naughton and Harry Groener. No question. There’s your Benjamin Stone and Buddy Plummer. Now…

Phyllis Rogers Stone is the part that got Alexis Smith her Tony. She was played by Lee Remick, Dee Hoty, Blythe Danner, Juliet Prowse, Diana Rigg…I cannot remember any more. Do you see the type? People are crying out for Donna Murphy. Donna is my girlfriend and I love her, so I am parital. I am also smart. That’s why I say people are right. They could not be more right. If it is anyone but Donna, I will be shocked—though I will say, if it were to be anyone but Donna, I would call Twiggy Lawson. Interesting, eh? I thought you might think so.

(It should be stated here that there has been speculation that Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline should play Phyl and Ben. I think it is inspired casting, as is the idea that Susan Sarandon would be great in the role. This will never happen at Encores!. Maybe it could happen in a film version but not onstage. Sorry. Realism kicks in. Beautiful fantasy, though!)

Sally Durant Plummer is the tough one because everyone wants to love her. She is so pitiful, so long suffering, so unhappy. I love her, too. I love the recordings of Dorothy Collins and I loved seeing Miss McKechnie and my beloved Judith Ivey in the role. Judy was much criticized because she is not a singer. I don’t get it. I think it is because the concert version had Barbara Cook playing the part. They raised the keys for her (listen to Collin’s original recordings, please) and everyone began to think Sally was a singer’s role. Sally is an ACTOR’S part. If she can sing, that’s a good thing; but it is all about the actor. That’s why Judy Ivey was so wonderful. You see, the audience has to feel sympathy for Sally—all the while realizing she is a whiny, simpy, bitchy, complaining, fridgid, anger ball. She is not a likeable character, she is deeply flawed and all she does is complain—as young Sally, as old Sally. She is a simp. But the audience HAS to like her in spite of it all, for the piece to work.

The answer is Maria Friedman. End of conversation. She has the talent to make the audience like Sally, in spite of her innate repugnance. She is a great actress and a great singer. Bam. Done, just like that.

I think I will probably attend FOLLIES, as I am an addict for the score and I will, natch, be interested to see how it all turns out. I wonder who will win the game of dream casting? There should be a betting pool on it in Atlantic City.

Mind you, I am not an expert on this piece—nor am I an expert on musical theater. I think I have said, before, I am an armchair expert, at best. For the real facts, for the knowledgeable breakdown, you would have to talk to Ken Bloom, Peter Filichia, David Schmittou, Steve Loucks or, better yet, Mr. Sondheim. They are the real experts. I’m just a homo with an opinion

One you WON’T find on TalkinBroadwayCom.

please note: i did not take the photo(s) shown in this piece.