| re: UK Follies live screening last night | |
| Last Edit: pierce 05:29 am EST 11/20/17 | |
| Posted by: pierce 05:25 am EST 11/20/17 | |
| In reply to: re: UK Follies live screening last night - sf 06:48 pm EST 11/18/17 | |
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| There's a video clip out there of Dorothy Collins singing the song on the David Frost show during the original Broadway run. It's an astonishing performance - she keeps very still, and she sings the hell out of the song and does it without sobbing or choking or in any way acting it as if she's going crazy. It's obvious her Sally is having a breakdown - but she doesn't play the breakdown, she plays Sally's deep longing for Ben... And that's exactly how Dorothy Collins performed it the 3 times I saw her in Follies, albeit in a slinky black gown under dramatic lighting. People seem to forget the Loveland numbers should be performed as glossy, highly polished theater pieces, just like the ones an audience would see in the Follies of the 1940s. Collins' "Losing My Mind" had power because she invested it with everything she knew about her character's hopes, illusions and disappointments. And her determination NOT to lose control added greater poignancy to the moment. Bernadette Peters was a fine Sally until her "Losing My Mind," which was a disaster. But then, I thought her Desiree (in A Little Night Music) was also good until "Send in the Clowns." In both cases, she launched into these songs in full sobbing mode, making the words that followed mostly unintelligible. And it left her very little to build on; if you're in tears right from the start, where can you go after that? Do you just turn the songs into sob fests? I don't think that's the best approach, but unfortunately - at least on the nights I caught her - that's exactly what Peters did. However, I don't agree that Sally is really losing her mind at the end of Follies, and it certainly never came across like that in the original production. I think the lyric "LIKE I'm losing my mind" is the key; Sally doesn't go bonkers, even if she is shattered. Because of what she's experienced at the reunion, something inside her quietly dies; she's never the same. But that doesn't mean she's ready for Bellevue. The spark inside her has been extinguished, but it's been replaced with a rueful maturity that's long overdue. And Prince staged the scene to illustrate her weakened condition; she literally needed Buddy to lean on. But I always got a sense she'd have a greater appreciation for the man she always felt she "settled for." On the other hand, I agree the tendency (in later productions) to portray Sally as being ready for institutionalization is a serious misstep. |
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