Topic Follies on Broadway from the General Chit-Chat forum.
Post a reply or begin a new topic.
View other threads or jump to a different forum.
Go to page: Next or 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
|
| Author | Topic: Follies on Broadway |
|---|
 moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 8/9/2011 at 11:20:00 PM ET
Would love to hear more, Casper. I'm going on the 31st!
"Particular mention must be made of Bernadette Peters, who turns up briefly in a sort of sparkly Glinda the Good costume. She's the reluctant muse sent to help Alice with her writing. The muse is dressed like Oz, sounds like Queens and behaves like a bored student adviser." Alice Film Review, The New York Times, December 25, 1990
"I'm one star away from Dolly Parton ... and Raymond Massey is between us. I hope we don't suffocate him." Bernadette Peters receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, April 24, 1987
|  Jennifer
Registered User
Registered:
7/12/2010
From:
CA | posted: 8/10/2011 at 2:17:27 PM ET
From ATC
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/allthatchat/d.php?id=1999234
| casper
Registered User
Registered:
4/30/2008 | posted: 8/13/2011 at 1:19:10 PM ET
Sorry Moljul, it's been a few days since I've checked in here....
I was going to right a more in depth account but I thought I'd wait until a few more people had seen it and we could get a discussion going. I get so sucked in to shows that I'm not so good at the number by number breakdowns, but I'll give it a shot.
First off, the theater looked great. I was sitting up in the mezzanine and the walls were completely covered in the grey draping fabric that's on stage, and there were hanging construction lights with exposed lightbulbs strung around. I like when productions continue the set out into the theater, it so instantly sets the tone and even while you're sitting flipping through the playbill you already feel very much "in it" and a part of it.
I don't know if all productions of Follies have the ghosts on stage and coming and going the whole time, with the younger versions sort of longingly stalking their older selves. But I really got that haunted if these walls could talk moment through out the whole first act and really wanted more. I got goosebumps several times. At intermission I turned to my friends (us all in our early 20s and performers) and said "I can't wait til that's me". Obviously I don't want to look back at my life with regret or anything, but to truly have been a part of something and to look back and say "I'm still here" is I think what affected us so much.
"I'm Still Here"(Elaine Paige) and "Broadway Baby" (Jayne Houdyshell) both stopped the show. "Mirror Mirror" was amazing! I could not take my eyes off of Bernadette's feet, she killed it! I had no idea they all could dance like that. Even when the ghosts come out and it's all 20 something dancers, it's the older ones you watch. There's a reason they are all stars.
Jan Maxwell blew me away! I almost stood up after her "Could I leave You", the audience applauded for well over a minute after. It rips your heart out how profoundly sad and angry she is. I love the stark contrast of her to Sally, who is played the victim (more to that in a minute) the whole show. Jan's choices were very strong and realistic. Yes, she's miserable and can't stand being with her lying cheating husband, but she owns all of her own choices and I think the audience really respects the character. However, Ms. Maxwell is not the strongest dancer and I think in the Lucy and Jessie they should cut some of the more advanced steps, it looked kind of amateur-ish, which kind of defeats the point. I don't get it though because there are a bunch of male dancers on stage with her, I think she could easily get away with more or less standing and singing while gesturing, a la Marilyn Monroe in Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend.
While I LOVE Bernadette and saw her in ALNM 3 times and was blown away by her performance in that show, I did not love a lot of her choices as Sally. Vocally she was spot on the whole time and it's almost impossible (for me anyway) to watch anyone else while she is on stage. Her acting seemed slightly pushed and affected. I know her laying her head back is sort f her signature, but I felt she did it about 5 too many times through out the show. She just played wounded and sad the whole time and I think failed to get to another depth or dimension with Sally. Maybe it was just an off show though because I think one of the reasons I'm such a huge fan of her work is because she usually brings a lot of color and depth to her characters. This was another reason why I originally didn't give a longer review before, I kind of wanted to wait and see it again beofore I said anything negative about BP's performance. But oh well, it's the truth but also just my opinion and I would love to hear what other people had to say about it.
The guys (Ron Raines and Danny Burstein) were both really well cast and great, though most of the time very over shadowed (intentionally?) by Bernadette and Jan.
Over all though I though it was incredible and will see it as many times as I can afford. I loved it and anyone who has a chance should go!!
|  MsPetersFan1
Registered User
Registered:
6/25/2002
From:
Long Island, New York & Boston, | posted: 8/20/2011 at 10:11:53 AM ET
Hi all - (spoilers below)
I haven't posted here since probably 2005/2006! I saw Follies last night from the third row. I actually bought the tickets on a whim two days ago and I am kicking myself for never seeing Bernadette in ALNM. It was incredible seeing Bernadette perform on Broadway again. I saw her in concert up in Boston a few years ago, but it's a totally different experience when she's on that Broadway stage. I agree with others that it is very hard to take your eyes off of her and watch the whole show.
That being said, I have never seen Follies before and really didn't know too much about it beforehand. I very much enjoyed the costumes and set and thought that overall the cast was great. Bernadette was wonderful of course. She captured the sadness of Sally very well. I felt like crying when she was crying up on that stage! I think the highlight for me was seeing her tap dance. She's still got it! I'm curious to know whether or not she had to practice a lot for the dancing or if she remembered how to do it. I also enjoyed her solo "Losing my Mind." She just looked very beautiful the way she captured Sally's sorrow.
But, to be perfectly honest - I did not like Follies. It really had nothing to do with the cast, I just found the show so depressing. I know its supposed to be like that, but I much prefer Gypsy. Personally, I also like when Bernadette is primarily the lead rather than in a greater cast like Follies.
And on a side note, I noticed Bernadette's assistant Patty watching from the sixth row the whole show. I thought that was nice!
~* Megan *~
| Jennifer
Registered User
Registered:
7/12/2010
From:
CA | posted: 8/23/2011 at 4:57:44 PM ET
2 Tickets and After-Party Passes to Broadway's Opening Night of Follies on September 12 in NYC
http://www.charitybuzz.com/catalog_items/272619
| Jennifer
Registered User
Registered:
7/12/2010
From:
CA | posted: 8/24/2011 at 6:54:53 PM ET
SPOTLIGHT ON FOLLIES 2011: Ron Raines
http://broadwayworld.com/article/SPOTLIGHT-ON-FOLLIES-2011-Ron-Raines-20110824
|  Jean
Registered User
Registered:
6/7/2003 | posted: 8/26/2011 at 12:54:04 PM ET
Photos from the Broadway production. I like Bernadette's new costume (rose/pink dress), the style/color flatters her. I like the fur that Elaine Paige has, fits Carlotta I think.
Photos Broadway Production
| Jennifer
Registered User
Registered:
7/12/2010
From:
CA | posted: 9/1/2011 at 6:51:55 PM ET
Jan Maxwell article
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/realestate/residential/maxwell_house_jhMZwLjw9gDceUfJx6TMuL
| Jennifer
Registered User
Registered:
7/12/2010
From:
CA | posted: 9/1/2011 at 8:04:13 PM ET
You need to subscribe to finish reading the article. Maybe the entire story will be available later.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904583204576542453370742790.html
type "news.google.com" into google then type "Bernadette Peters Turns Dark" and click the first link an you don't have to pay. : )
| Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
71.58.130.x | posted: 9/2/2011 at 12:15:12 AM ET
Bernadette Peters Turns Dark
Wall Street Journal 09/02/11
The star often associated with sunny, optimistic characters takes on a jaded, world-weary role in the Broadway revival of "Follies.".
By ELLEN GAMERMAN
At a recent preview performance of the Broadway show "Follies," Bernadette Peters appeared on stage in a body-hugging velvet dress to sing "Losing My Mind," a poignant torch song about unrequited love. Around the same time, the Marquis Theatre began to fill with the smell of burning plastic. The audience made a choice: Instead of yelling "fire" in the crowded theater, they stayed put.
The odor—from an incinerated gel on a stage light—had even less impact on the curly-haired native New Yorker. Awaiting her entrance, she recalls being so focused on her climactic solo that she did not recognize the smell. "I went, 'Oh, is someone wearing a new perfume?' "
That concentration from Ms. Peters has come to characterize the 63-year-old actress, considered one of Stephen Sondheim's most skilled interpreters. On Sept. 12, she opens as Sally Durant Plummer, a former Ziegfeld-style showgirl turned broken Phoenix housewife, in a revival of Mr. Sondheim's 1971 musical "Follies."
Mr. Sondheim says he suggested her for the part, eager to see her take on a jaded character. "The idea of a world-weary woman is not something she's ever played except in the movies," he says. "It's not the kind of part one would think of her for."
The roughly $6 million production, which opened this past spring at Washington's Kennedy Center, marks her second appearance in a Broadway revival of a Sondheim musical in little more than a year. Last summer, Ms. Peters replaced Catherine Zeta-Jones in "A Little Night Music." Previously, she originated the roles of Dot/Marie in Mr. Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park With George" and the Witch in his "Into the Woods" on Broadway in the 1980s.
"Follies," about former chorus girls who reunite the night before their old theater is torn down, is often cited as one of Mr. Sondheim's most challenging musicals, thanks to a complicated score and a bitter-edged storyline. But Ms. Peters says she has long wanted to play the show's troubled heroine. "I knew there was something interesting there to figure out and she's even more complex than I realized," she says of the part.
The two-time Tony Award winner, whose films include "Pennies From Heaven" and "The Jerk," is guarded about her personal story, which includes the death of her husband, Michael Wittenberg, in a 2005 helicopter crash. But she sees something universal in a character filled with longing and obsessed by a fond memory of falling in love: "You want to try to recapture that happiness that you had at a certain point in your life," she says. "She's yearning deeply for something and also disappointed."
Lisa Albright, who directs Ms. Peters in "Coming Up Roses," a film about a former musical-theater diva debuting this month at New York's Woodstock Film Festival, says Ms. Peters shares with the film's character an ability to endure despite personal tragedy. "She's had to get out there and do eight shows a week and put on her stage face," Ms. Albright says.
As she prepares for opening night, Ms. Peters has a problem many women her age might envy: To play Sally, a 49-year-old matron who sings about being fat and eating Baby Ruths, the well-tended Ms. Peters is struggling to keep on weight. With all the performing, including a tap-dance number, she says the pounds are coming off. Just to be safe, she's skipping her arm workouts.
| Jennifer
Registered User
Registered:
7/12/2010
From:
CA | posted: 9/5/2011 at 4:12:59 PM ET
Thanks Anonymous I wish I would have thought to just cut and paste the article. 
|  DavidJ
Registered User
Registered:
9/23/2011 | posted: 9/23/2011 at 6:25:57 AM ET
Follies to extend thru January 22 2012
congratulations to all the cast. Great news
|  Artistiique
Registered User
Registered:
3/31/2010
From:
Norway
Fav. BP Song: Being Alive & No One Is Alone
| posted: 9/23/2011 at 12:15:38 PM ET
That's great! I'm going to New York in two weeks and my parents said they wanted to see a Broadway show!
I thought I would never get a chance to see Bernadette on stage. I'm so excited 
| DavidJ
Registered User
Registered:
9/23/2011 | posted: 11/12/2011 at 5:11:14 AM ET
Hi everyone and esp Moljul
Just being really nosey but read you were going to see Follies again, how was it?
x
| Jennifer
Registered User
Registered:
7/12/2010
From:
CA | posted: 11/12/2011 at 10:52:06 AM ET
I second that Moljul. How was the show and how many times have you seen it? : )
|  AMH
Registered User
Registered:
11/7/2011
From:
North Carolina | posted: 11/16/2011 at 12:46:23 PM ET
Those who have seen the show, what do you think of Bernadette's interpretation of Sally? I saw it a couple weeks ago and absolutely loved it! (I'm seeing it again next month.)
After reading around on some other message boards, it seems a lot of people do not like Bernadette's certifiable Sally. Although I have never seen any past performances of Follies (and am a little biased), I thought Bernadette's portrayal was very believable. I didn't think she over-acted the part at all.
| Go to page: Next or 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Other threads: « Next | Previous » |
Do you think this topic is inappropriate? Vote it down. After a thread receives a certain amount of negative votes it will be automatically locked.
Please contact us with any concerns you might have.
|
