| "Losing My Mind" was originally conceived as a duet for Phyllis and Sally, wandering among a chorus of Bens (the chorus would be all dressed to look like Ben, a la "I Only Have Eyes for You" in Dames). This was when Sondheim was resisting having numbers for each of the principals in the "Follies" sequence because he thought it would get boring and predictable. ("So now this person is getting a number. That means there are two to go.") Then for a time it was to be Phyllis's solo. At some point (perhaps the original idea was again being considered?), Alexis Smith went to Sondheim to say that she knew she would come off badly if she sang a duet with Dorothy Collins. As I heard Sondheim tell it in a talk back in 2001 (he doesn't tell it in this detail in Finishing the Hat), Smith said to him something like, "I'm not much of a singer, I'm not much of dancer, i'm not even much of an actress, but I've got great legs." And then he knew what to do. (Did she really say those things? I don't know. But my memory is that he said she did, or at least things close to that.) |
