by Ted Chapin
At Feller’s: Michael Bennett, Fritz Holt,
Ruth Mitchell, Hal Prince, and Steve Sondheim.
Dominating the entire central area of the studio stood the basic multitiered set for Follies. All the levels—the basic raked stage and the three platforms resting on top—were in place. All the side units stood roughly in their offstage positions, and were constructed as high as the ceiling of the studio would allow; most didn’t have their uppermost platforms in place. Nothing was finished or painted, but it was an amazing sight. No matter how many drawings or models you might have seen, there is nothing like the excitement when you first see a set. It’s also always a little shocking, because it’s never exactly as you imagined it. And seeing this particularly vast set fill a place that seemed large to begin with made it seem gargantuan. The set was very big, very tall, very unfinished, and without a single level playing area. I walked around to the rear, and stood dead center. The basic raked floor came up to my chin. In the theater, I figured, no one will realize it’s five and a half feet off the floor, but here, where the set is isolated, it felt as if the actors would be performing in the trees. With the exception of two escape stairs at the very rear of the set going off on each side and a couple of isolated locations, everything on the stage would be in full view of the audience. There would be no place to hide. Nothing quite seemed to relate to anything else. For a depiction of something in a decrepit state, it looked awfully complicated. An upright piano had been placed up on the platform, where it would remain as part of the onstage band, to be used for all the rehearsals on the set. Upstairs, an old spinet from Cabaret. would serve to accompany rehearsals in the largest of the rooms.
Even though it was Saturday, the distinctive sound of power tools being turned on, ripping their way through their designated task, and then being turned off could be heard everywhere. Workmen were wandering all over the set, banging and sawing; clearly, every bit of time was being used. Meanwhile, in one quiet corner of the studio, observing everything, stood Lisa and Boris Aronson.
Hal and Michael had arrived earlier than everyone else. They knew what to expect. Standing directly in front of the set, in the spot that would be the orchestra pit in the theater, they gathered the company together. “Okay, when the workmen are finished, we’ll give you five minutes to look around, walk all over the set. You can use the time for all the bitching you want. Bitch, complain, and get mad. But after five minutes, I don’t want to hear another word, because we have to realize this is our set and we’ll have to make it work for us.”
The actors wandered around, cautiously. They walked up stairs that somehow seemed twice as tall as they had ever imagined. They peered around steel pipes welded together in odd configurations. The older actors expressed concern for others rather than admit their own fears; Ethel Shutta remarked that it was too bad Fifi would have to “climb around all those stairs with her bad eyesight and bad ankles.” Entrances and exits were marked, and stairs and units were not where anyone thought they would be. Alexis climbed up one of the two permanent downstage towers and peered down over the main stage area onto what looked like a vast cavern of empty space, a slightly seasick expression on her face. Comments: “My God, it’s huge.” “Oh, Lord.” Ethel announced: “I don’t know about the set, but the noise here is killing me.” Steve Boockvor, the actor playing Yvonne’s escort, Randy, looked around and said, “I think they’ve got a fuck of a lot of work left to do.”
Indeed they did. That is why, starting on Monday, the shop would have the normal working hours of the day, and we would work from four P.M. until midnight. Hal and Michael were anxious to use more and more of the mechanics, so they would exert gentle pressure on the Fellers to finish up. The side units were a particular concern since many entrances and exits were timed in conjunction with their movements; until they were up and running, the transitions could only be approximated. But every day, a little more of the set would be finished and painted. Of course, once the set was finished, mechanized, painted, and tested, it would have to be taken entirely apart, fit into trucks, driven to Boston, and reassembled on the stage of the Colonial Theatre. That would all happen in two weeks’ time. One added bonus: the stage of the Colonial Theatre is smaller than the one at the Winter Garden, so backstage would be cramped and the downstage towers virtually obscured by the proscenium arch.
“Okay, the five minutes is up as far as Hal Prince is concerned,” came the authoritative voice. “Let’s work our way through the show, starting at the top, and let’s stop, please, whenever there is a problem. We’ll adjust all the entrances and exits as quickly as possible. But, please, let’s not waste time.” Michael added that all dances would only be marked, warning everyone that the raked stage would definitely take some getting used to. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Hal then asked for quiet from the workers in the shop and in that moment told the cast there would be “no talking or we’ll leave you in the Bronx!”
The work-through went amazingly well. Starting with the Prologue, the staging transformed itself from the flat floor of the rehearsal studio to the levels of the set with remarkable beauty. The ghosts seemed interestingly placed, giving the impression of being in their own world, not quite part of the scenery, not quite part of the action, inhabiting the farthest corners and highest platforms. The actors’ entrances and exits were tricky to execute, and time had to be taken to figure out exactly where they were meant to be. The side units affected every entrance, since they filled the entire space on each side of the stage. Entrances were either through, over, or under one of them, and sometimes more than one. It had been a lot easier in the rehearsal studio simply to walk across tape on the floor or over a plywood platform. Breaks were called when Pete Feller and his crew needed to finish something that was deemed of vital importance to allow the staging to progress—like cutting a groove in the floor so the unit containing the staircase for the “Ziegfeld” entrances of “Beautiful Girls” could be pulled manually into its proper downstage position.
The Montage proved to be the first stumbling block. The entire weight of it fell on the shoulders of four older actors out on a raked stage—alone. It was scary. Dortha Duckworth had trouble adjusting to where she was supposed to be and remembering her lines, and Charlie Welch was quietly supportive. Fifi D’Orsay was terrified. Ethel Shutta didn’t like all those weird angles, but once she planted her feet on the stage and belted out “Broadway Baby,” it was clear she was well on her way to delivering a showstopper. The three-way ending was beginning to work. Steve Sondheim, too curious to stay away, seemed happy throughout, but especially overjoyed at “Broadway Baby.” Jim Goldman sat next to him, beaming.
The idea of rehearsing on the actual set was Michael’s, and it was clearly a good one. He knew how difficult it was going to be for the older actors to adjust to the various levels, but he also knew how treacherous it was to dance on any raked stage, let alone on one with multiple levels. (Several members of the company remarked years later that they never really recovered from injuries suffered dancing in Follies. Actors’ Equity even created a rule determining how much of a rake their members would be required to dance on.) The more familiar everyone in the cast was with the set, he reckoned, the easier time they would all have in Boston. Michael had loved the different levels in the initial sketch, and he wanted to use them as much as possible, even though he knew they would be a challenge. He thought they gave “the feeling of Ziegfeld stairs without having the stairs there.” Hal was fine with Michael’s input, as was Boris, who liked the way Hal worked, talking mood and feel and what he wanted to accomplish, and then letting Boris come up with a concept and a design. “If you can do a show with no scenery, then scenery is a waste of time and energy,” Boris had said, and since every inch of this set was clearly being used, he was a happy man. “If his set isn’t used, Boris is unhappy,” Lisa said. I noticed that the farthest unit upstage right included a solid piece of brick wall, and that none of the others did. I said that I liked how it
set off the structural nature of all the others. Lisa smiled. She said Boris had insisted on one solid unit, and although Hal had initially balked, he had come around.
Lisa also said she was amazed at how quickly the set was coming together. She lamented the changes that had been made for economic reasons—first and foremost, changing the floor from wood planking to a flat floor painted to look like planking. There had been a compromise step contemplated—cutting grooves into a solid floor to make it look like planking—but painting the floor won out in the end. I would be surprised if Michael hadn’t chimed in on that decision, since anything that would have made the dancing surfaces potentially uneven could have proved devastating.
Several members of the Feller family stood around, taking it all in. They were used to visits by designers, directors, and producers, but an invasion of this many actors was a first. “This is the last of the biggies,” Pete said. And then, in a very straightforward manner, without any particular emotion, he observed: “It will be very good, be a hit, and not make money, although it will run.” He said he didn’t expect to see any profits from his $14,000 investment.
There had been progress in the music department on the day off. The song Steve had delivered to Mathilde was for Buddy in Loveland. I was handed a copy from which I was to extract the lyrics for the script. By this time I had learned how particular Steve was about how he wanted lyrics typed. In the script, they were to be in capitals with all punctuation in place—lines ending in commas, semicolons, periods, question marks if the line is a question, quotation marks if the line is a quote, and no punctuation only if the next line is a continuation. All slang was to be kept as written but vowels would be restored to words if they were removed in the piano/vocal sheet to indicate how specific syllables were to be sung. (For example, “EVERY” would go in the script, while “Ev-’ry” would go with the two corresponding notes in the score.) Spoken lines were to be written with normal usage of lower-and uppercase letters. The new song was entitled “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues.” It included internal dialogue, quotes, hyphens, and slang—the whole bit. As always, the stage managers were anxious that I get the lyrics typed out as quickly as possible. On the typewriter, the hyphen was a lowercase key, the capital letters, of course, uppercase, which meant constant shifting. The following was typical: “I’VE GOT THOSE ‘GO-AWAY-I-NEED-YOU,’ ‘COME-TO-ME-I’LL-KILL-YOU,’ ‘DARLING- I’LL- DO-ANYTHING-TO-KEEP-YOU-WITH-ME-TILL-YOU-TELL-ME-THAT-YOU-LOVE-ME-OH-YOU-DID-NOW-BEAT-IT WILL-YOU?’ BLUES.” The song was written for two men in drag to represent Sally (Buddy’s wife) and Margie (his mistress). From this moment on, it was alternatively titled “Buddy’s Blues.”
Not for long: John J. Martin and Dick Latessa as the costumed objects of
Gene Nelson’s affection. They were replaced by bona fide women in Boston.
The work-through took until 4:30. Hal said he was very happy with how good everything looked and how the set seemed to enhance the show at every turn. Michael was most eager to work through the big dances on the set, so he took it for the rest of the day. Hal took the party scenes upstairs to “change some color and some style.” Steve found another room upstairs to work out some lyrics for a new song. He was in an expansive mood, praising the work done on the show so far and saying that he felt that every single movement on the stage was fascinating.
Hal cheerfully adjusted to working in a decidedly smaller space, a plain factory room with dirty white walls. He began by giving John McMartin a new line for Ben as he pours two brandies and drinks them both himself. After hearing it a couple of times, Hal said, “Well, John, I don’t think they’re going to fall out of their seats screaming with laughter and call for the author over that line, but I do think there’s more of a laugh to be found.” John listened, said nothing, then did the line completely differently and got a chuckle from everyone in the room. There was a new line for Dimitri Weismann, the Ziegfeld-like character, about how the party was tax deductible. Without a moment’s hesitation, Hal said to Edwin Steffe, the actor playing Weismann, “That is a new line and I haven’t given you a line reading yet.”
The day ended at 6:15, and everyone piled back into the bus. I sat with Fritz Holt, with whom I rarely had much opportunity to talk—no one is busier during rehearsals than the production stage manager. He mentioned that Hal had been concerned about working on the set this early, but that he understood Michael’s strong feeling about getting on those levels as early in the rehearsal process as possible. Fritz also knew that Hal wasn’t thrilled to realize that from here on, the only times the stage would be his was during run-throughs and cleanups. Run-throughs were going to start happening with increased regularity, to be sure, but scene work was going to be relegated to any place other than the set itself, which Michael would need for musical staging.
By the time everyone arrived for rehearsal on Sunday, the novelty of coming to the Bronx had worn off. Hal decided that he was going to be difficult. There were too many clamoring workmen around the set, and despite all pleas, there was still noise throughout the rest of the studio. He picked up the microphone that had been rigged up so he and Michael could be heard by everyone and announced that he wanted quiet, that he was not in a good mood, and that he intended to get a lot done today. Leaving the set to Michael, he took the actors in the book scenes upstairs.
Michael began with “Loveland.” For the first time, the pie-shaped steps were put in place. The workmen pushed the upstage side units to their extreme offstage positions, removed wedges underneath the two three-step units, and pivoted them down. The center of the stage then seemed like a big circle, although the steps weren’t actually on the same axis. Once they were in place, the dancers walked up and down, getting a feel for them. Michael blocked out the staging he had created in the studio, positioning the principals, young and old, downstage center, where they will be “having at” each other. The chorus then sweeps on from all sides and takes over the stage, enveloping the principals, who are cleverly removed without the audiences realizing what’s happening. They will be gone by the time the chorus pairs off to sing: “Time stops, hearts are young, only serenades are sung in Loveland, where everybody lives to love.” After a verse and a short dance, a V-shape will be formed along the sides, with everyone pointing to centermost upstage position. There, each showgirl makes an entrance, one at a time, accompanied by a recitation of a couplet about love assigned to the male dancers. Each costume is to be inspired by its corresponding couplet, and each showgirl will pose, then parade around the stage, displaying her outlandish and fantastical garment for all to see. Even with the dancers in motley rehearsal clothes, you could sense how the levels would all work together to give the audience the feeling that they were viewing everything slightly from above—halfway between a Ziegfeld staircase and the June Taylor dancers from the Jackie Gleason Show.
Hal remained upstairs, going over transitions and party scenes. He worked on Heidi Schiller’s speech about her beloved composer who wrote the waltz “One More Kiss” for her. “Oscar Straus . . . or was it Johann?” She was now out of the wheelchair and on a cane. As her line was being shortened, Justine Johnston elongated whatever words she had left, as if filling her allocated time, no matter what. Yvonne rehearsed her speech about how wonderful it is to be in the movies because it keeps her young, although acknowledging that her type isn’t used as much as it once was: “Used to be I played the bitch who lost the boy; now I’m somebody’s hot-pantsed mother, stinko by my swimming pool and all my kids are acid heads. I love it!” Hal’s direction: “Make the ‘I love it’ really big.” Yvonne was feeling frisky. She had a lot of ideas. What if she said her speech to one person only, to Heidi, who happened to be standing right next to her? Hal said no, that Carlotta would never have a conversation with any one person; she would address a group. “I may be the son of a bitch who did this to you, but it will only bring out more vitality,” he said. He had her pose for several photographs during the scene, but she didn’t want
to keep having to stop and start. She wanted to change a line from having “lost the boy” to having “stole the boy.” Hal reassured her that Jim had intended the line the way he wrote it. Ed Steffe couldn’t get enough lechery into his line with a young waitress: “So you want to be a star, my dear?” Hal thought maybe smoking long black cigars would help, and said that he didn’t mind if Ed smoked them all night long. Yvonne chimed in, “Not before my song!” “You know the trouble with that girl?” Hal said to the assembled group. “She’s a gun collector, and she’ll take out a Luger and shoot you.” Everyone laughed. Her mind was on “Can That Boy Fox Trot!” which was ready for Michael. They began working on it during the lunch break, and although she was excited, she said later that she didn’t care for some of the “suggestive gestures” Michael was contemplating.
Putting “Beautiful Girls” on the set proved to be a challenge. The plywood platforms back in the rehearsal room had been mastered, but the reality of the set was another story. The side unit that contained the stairs was designed to look like a collection of rubble. As a result, even though the rise was the same, each step was a different size and shape. The women were unnerved. Descending without falling down was one challenge, but to gain access to the top of the stairs for the entrance itself, everyone would have to climb up an offstage ladder attached to the furthermost downstage unit, cross over a plank behind the stage band, and then emerge, one at a time and on the proper beat of music, at the top of the next upstage platform. All the actresses were in some version of panic at the very thought, and the really smart ones realized that some of them were going to have to do this in long dresses. Michael and Bob, along with George Martin and John Grigas, lined the girls up and slowly walked them through and down the stairs. This took a lot of cajoling and hand-holding. And as if the actresses needed one more thing to be concerned about, they began to realize that once they stepped off the staircase onto the stage area to promenade around Miss America-style, they would cross the very front of the stage, which in the theater would drop off into the orchestra pit. There was a uniform look of panic on all faces.
