Everything Was Possible

by Ted Chapin

  Even though there was no official party, everyone broke off into small gatherings. The bigwigs went to Trader Vic’s in the Statler Hilton, and most of the rest of the company to the Tiki Hut in Boston’s Chinatown. The difference between the two places was stark—the former heavily decorated and expensive, the latter very straightforward and unadorned. Both stayed open late. I went to the Tiki Hut, where Angela Lansbury turned up, fresh from a performance of Prettybelle. She was greeted especially warmly by two members of the Follies company who had been in shows with her before—Harvey Evans (Anyone Can Whistle) and Kurt Peterson (Dear World).

  Sunday morning, the creative staff gathered on the stage to discuss the performance of the night before. Hal kept urging his collaborators to listen to the audience. Fritz Holt had heard several patrons say they didn’t like the four main characters, who didn’t seem to like each other. Hal responded: “Yes, we know that, and that’s part of the point of the show. We also know that what we have to do is move the audience.” Someone reported hearing an audience member saying it was “just god-awful,” another that it was “longer than Ben-Hur:” Others reported hearing that the costumes were good. Of the cast, Dorothy got the majority of the kudos. Overall, the mood was optimistic but also realistic. There was work to be done, but a panic had not set in.

  Hal had learned from George Abbott the wisdom of playing the first performance on a Saturday night, leaving Sunday to make changes before a second performance on Monday. If Mr. Abbott felt something didn’t work, out it went—no hesitation. He didn’t want a lot of talk; he just wanted things fixed. Hal wasn’t quite that kind of director, and this show was too ambitious, and too conceptual, for that sort of approach. But there were things that concerned him greatly. First on the list was the intermission. No one was happy that the show ran so long in one act, but there was no agreement on how that should be remedied. Hal wanted an intermission; he felt that the audience would “savor the show by having a breather in the middle.” Steve, on the other hand, wanted twenty-five minutes cut and no intermission. Someone had told him the show was like a banquet, and that by the time Loveland comes along, dessert has already been served. He himself didn’t have twenty-five minutes of cuts to offer; he just felt instinctively that the show played better as one unit and wanted to avoid an arbitrary break. The producer in Hal didn’t like seeing audience members wander up and down the aisles whenever they felt the need to take an intermission, and he was beginning to dig in his heels. He wanted an intermission. Michael was strangely quiet on the subject, but Hal felt so strongly that he persuaded everyone to give it a try.

  Steve asked if anyone could figure out why Heidi Schiller got the biggest hand in “Beautiful Girls” when she made her way down the staircase. The consensus was that it took a while for the audience to catch on to the Miss America—style entrances at the top of the stairs, and when they did it just happened to be Heidi’s turn. Hal wanted to know if one of Yvonne’s lines was a joke: “When she tells the band to play in D minor, is that a joke? Is there such a key?” Steve said that, yes, there was, but that if Hal wanted the line to be a joke, she should say that she didn’t sing the song in C-sharp minor but in D-flat minor. They’re the same notes; that would be a joke.

  The company was called for noon. Hal took everyone else to the anteroom of the ladies’ lounge for notes. The late-nineteenth-century pedigree of the ornate Colonial called for a large and elaborate ladies’ lounge. Just off the main lobby, it was as rococo as the lobby itself, with a beautiful carpet and a large oval onyx table in the center. The lavatory was discreetly through one of the four identical doors along the side walls. The gentlemen’s lounge was on the lower level, and its anteroom was as workmanlike as the ladies’ lounge was elaborate. Its marble floor and wooden benches provided a more conducive rehearsal space; it now had a rehearsal piano rolled into a corner. The ladies’ lounge provided a more comfortable space for notes. Chairs were at a premium, but Ethel Shutta, as senior member, commandeered a nice one for herself. When she was called out of the note session for a message, Hal Hastings got up from the floor and took her chair. Upon her return, she pointed right at him and said, “Out!” He obliged.

  The company gets notes from Ruthie and Hal in the

  ladies’ lounge of the Colonial Theatre.

  Hal Prince announced to the company that there would be an intermission on Monday. Although there was no perfect place for it, he had decided, and Michael concurred, that it would come immediately after “Too Many Mornings.” From a timing standpoint, this made sense; it came at about two-thirds of the way through the evening. The song was a passionate statement of Ben’s regret at having lost Sally many years earlier, but the staging was simple and beautiful. It would make for a quiet end to the act. Both Sally and Young Sally are onstage listening to Ben, and during the course of the song Young Sally actually comes into his arms and kisses him, while Sally mimics the embrace standing a few feet away. Margot Travers, in her long slinky black gown, swept in in front, while Buddy, from a perch high up on a platform, sees his wife in Ben’s arms for the first time. Hal said they would work out the logistics later on the stage, but it was definitely going in on Monday.

  “Too Many Mornings”—ghost and present-day characters interact.

  Dorothy Collins, Marti Rolph, John McMartin,.

  It was time for small fixes. Here are several:

  1. Steve changed the first lyric in “Love Will See Us Through” from “Listen, dear” to “Sally, dear,” partly to underscore the connection between the characters and the Follies songs.

  2. “Madame” was added to the announcement of Solange LaFitte in the Prologue. (There was much amusement when Hal Hastings rerecorded this announcement and got unasked-for direction from all the French experts in the company about how to pronounce the word “madame.”)

  3. Everyone was given invitations to carry as they arrived at the party. This was to respond to a concern voiced by Steve (“This is a party—wouldn’t they have invitations?).

  4. Phyllis’s line in the Prologue was changed from “It’s not right, Ben, to knock this down to build a parking lot” to “What this city needs is one more parking lot.”

  5. Phyllis’s line after Hattie asks Ben for his autograph for her grandson—“Why don’t they ever say, ‘I want your autograph’?” —was cut.

  6. Heidi Schiller’s line about Oscar Straus bringing her “white roses” (pronounced “vite rozez” by Justine Johnston) was cut.

  7. Before the Montage, instead of several photographs taken of Emily and Theodore Whitman, there was to be only one, so focus could be given to Weismann’s scene with the waitress, which ended with the line, “So you want to be a star, my dear . . .”

  8. Solange’s line about her perfume, Magic, being “available at all the best department stores” was cut. (Fifi looked panicked at the thought of a line being cut.)

  9. Ben’s line “What we need is a drink” after “Don’t Look at Me” was moved inside the number, just before the final chord.

  10. There was a new and smaller piano on the platform for the onstage band, since Hal had observed that the old piano looked like the star of the show.

  11. The orchestration for “Waiting for the Girls Upstairs” was adjusted slightly to bring out the rhythm, and one staging moment was changed so Buddy ran only to the center platform in the middle of the song rather than to stage right and up one of the staircases.

  12. Ben was to be seated on the rubble way downstage right at the base of the proscenium arch for “The Road You Didn’t Take.”

  13. Young Sally and Young Phyllis were given a new entrance during the scene when Ben and Sally are looking through old photographs.

  14. Six new lines were added for the women as they enter to get into position for “Who’s That Woman?” including Carlotta’s “I can’t tap-dance anymore. I haven’t had tap shoes on in thirty years,” and Meredith Lane, the role played by Sheila Smith, saying, “This number winded me when I was
nineteen.”

  15. Slight choreographic changes were made to “Bolero d’Amour.”

  16. The end of “Can That Boy Fox Trot!” was changed so Yvonne could get offstage faster.

  Michael took the stage, first to clean up “Bolero d’Amour” and then to go through “Uptown, Downtown” and some other moments that looked sloppy in performance. His nerves were short, and when people were talking too much for his taste he boomed out, “Look, if I’m going to take the trouble to rehearse you, then I think we should get something done. Let me remind you that you have played one, and only one, performance.” Hal, too, had a moment of exasperation when he was working on the stage and there was a lot of noise backstage. From his rehearsal perch in the front row of the theater, he boomed: “Whoever is talking, shut up! I’m trying to get something done out here and if you don’t shut up I will come up there and just see who’s talking. Now for God’s sake, shut up!” That’s how the whole day went—little notes, little fixes, and little tantrums. The company walked through the new intermission, the stage managers standing by, scripts in hand. It was they, after all, who would have to coordinate any changes with the crew, who were not called in today. The logistics seemed fairly simple. One question was: Exactly where in the stage action to bring the curtain up for the second act? Should the showgirl cross again? Should she be onstage at all? Should Ben and Young Sally still be kissing?

  The rest of the day was taken up with cleanups and walk-throughs of the moments that had been changed. Because “Waiting for the Girls Upstairs” had been a train wreck on Saturday, Hal Hastings called the orchestra before the performance so the cast could go through it. Jonathan Tunick made some adjustments, leaning over the orchestra rail and dictating them to the orchestra players for them to mark in their own individual parts. The idea was to clarify the rhythm that had proved to be so difficult on Saturday. (This was the first orchestration finished for the show, and Jonathan was never fully satisfied with it.) I found myself standing on the stage while the orchestra was playing, and was amazed to discover how little the actors can actually hear from the pit below. In another era, before true amplification, when orchestra pits were shallower and extended further out into the auditorium, it was easier for the actors to hear. But in order for the performers to hear the orchestra, speakers had to be placed behind the proscenium aimed onstage. Getting the balance right was tricky. How odd, I thought, even the actors need amplification to hear the orchestra.

  Both the Monday and Tuesday performances were less successful than Saturday’s. The Monday audience was very small. Alex Mohr, the house manager, blamed it on the late change in performance schedule; in any event, Monday night is a notoriously weak night in the theater, and the chances of our having had a significant presale or having sold this one as a benefit were remote. The mezzanine had patrons only in the first four rows of the center section, and they were scattered. Some appeared to be the first of the Follies groupies, however, since there was a small and vocal group who cheered certain things almost before they happened. Word had evidently gotten out. But their enthusiasm wasn’t enough to make the performance anything but lackluster. Applause was polite. Things that had played well on Saturday continued to play well, but the reactions weren’t as strong. The intermission made the show play in two parts, but that was about all it did. Reigniting the story after the intermission seemed an uphill fight, but since the performance lacked sparkle anyway, it was hard to tell whether that was due to the performance per se or to the show itself.

  On Monday, unlike Saturday night, the creative staff was worried. When the performance ended, Hal came backstage and asked Fritz to clear the stage. He wanted an impromptu meeting with Steve, Michael, and Jim, and he wanted it without anyone hanging around. From the looks on all the faces, nobody was happy. Hal’s biggest concern was “Can That Boy Fox Trot!” He felt they were doing the show and everyone a disservice by keeping the song and wanted a new number to replace it. This wasn’t an entirely fresh sentiment, but it was the first time it had been voiced so adamantly. Steve was resigned to writing something new and made a half-joking move to get up immediately to go back to the hotel and begin writing. But he didn’t have an answer as to what the new song should be, and he didn’t want to start until there was agreement about what kind of number was wanted. Within the score, it held a unique position: although definitely a song from the past, “Fox Trot” was sung at the party in the present, performed specifically for the other guests. It never went into the past, Carlotta had no ghost counterpart, and its reason for existence was simply that the actress was determined to perform it once on this stage. Period. There was humor in the notion of a college song sung by an over-the-hill movie star, and one sensed that it might have even been funny as a college song back in the days of the Follies. But it wasn’t working. In the show’s story line, Dimitri Weismann had cut it from the Follies in Philadelphia; now Hal Prince was about to cut it from Follies in Boston. This time, the chances were that it would be gone for good. Steve asked what Hal, Jim, and Michael thought a new song should be, and whether it should take place in the present or should it be another pastiche song from the past? No one had a clear idea, although Jim said that maybe it should be about survival, how Carlotta had been through a lot in her life and yet was still around. There was a sense of relief now that “Fox Trot” was going. More thought and discussion would have to go into the decision, but in the meantime everyone agreed to cut out the extended middle section as soon as possible. Michael had some staging thoughts about how the cut could be made easily. Obviously, though, Yvonne would have to be told that the song would be replaced before the cut could be made. And everyone wanted to wait at least one more day before dealing with her or with it. Uncut, at Monday night’s performance, “Can That Boy Fox Trot!” had lasted seven and a quarter minutes.

  Tuesday’s rehearsal began, as all rehearsals were to begin from now on, with notes, this time onstage. The cast would sit around the set (there were enough levels and stairs to provide ample perching opportunities) and Hal and Michael would stand in the front row of the auditorium, facing up at the stage. Hal was now clearly in charge; he gave most of the notes. Michael and Steve would interject comments whenever they felt it necessary. Some of Monday’s improvements were taken out, like the new staging of “The Road You Didn’t Take.” It turned out, although no one could have foreseen it, that having John McMartin sit on the proscenium rubble made it look like he was there simply to be near the floor microphones and to hear the orchestra better. There was a lot of gentle good humor about that, and the staging was returned to what it had been before. Mary McCarty raised her hand and asked if “Who’s That Woman?” could be slowed down a little at a certain point where she felt she would get a bigger laugh if she didn’t have to race through so fast. Politely but firmly Steve said that the number was written to go at a certain tempo and it should go at that tempo.

  One actor was beginning to be a problem: Ed Steffe, who was playing Dimitri Weismann. Steffe was a very nice, polite man, with a perfectly lovely voice. He always addressed Hal as “Sir.” But his acting was wooden, and Hal wasn’t making any headway in shaping his performance. Notes were received graciously, but little change was evident. Granted, Weismann wasn’t a large role, but it was crucial—not unlike Cap’n Andy in Show Boat, who provides the “motor” to the play. It’s his party around which the show is based, and he must give the audience the sense that he was once a force to be reckoned with. Florenz Ziegfeld was the clear inspiration for the character, and history tells us he was not a bashful man—it was, after all, the Weismann Theater in which the Weismann Follies once played. Steffe wasn’t understanding the role of the congenial host, and he seemed particularly uncomfortable with the lecherous side of the character; nor did he have much authority onstage. He still carried the cigar that Hal had given him in rehearsal in the hope that a prop would help him take command of the character, but the performance wasn’t improving, and Hal found himself giv
ing the same notes over and over.

  Yvonne De Carlo, belting it out.

  Arriving for the performance on Tuesday night, I ran into Alexis and Gene, who were in the lobby looking at the new photographs. Alexis was in a good mood, and while we talked she explained how detrimental she thought it was for actors to try to shape a show to their own needs, especially to get a bigger reaction, as Mary McCarty had suggested earlier in the afternoon. Of course she was relishing her new first line (“What this city needs is one more parking lot”) because she was using it to establish that “this lady is going to say funny things.” But there seemed to be a clear dividing line in her mind between an actor finding the right way to say lines—and get proper laughs—and one who wants things around her to be changed so she can get bigger laughs. It didn’t sound as if she was complaining about the competition; she just seemed like a very aware performer. And she was starting to get a good reaction from the audiences. She had a real sense of humor. With relish she related that when she and Gene had gotten into the cab together to come from the hotel, the driver wasn’t sure where the Colonial Theatre was. After they described it, he said, “Oh, yeah. That’s where that Yvonne De Carlo show is playing.” And she let out her nearly guttural laugh.

  The performance on Tuesday was a slight improvement over Monday’s. Now it was Michael’s turn to get depressed. “It’s a disaster,” he muttered. Hal wasn’t much happier and ordered the onstage band unit to be lowered by two or three feet, as his eye was still distracted by seeing the piano so prominent. Fritz asked whether this had been okayed by Boris, and Hal replied, “I have just decided it, and Mr. Aronson need not be consulted.” (Note: that was the last we ever heard about lowering the platform, which remained as designed and as built.) The lighting came in for some criticism. It was complicated and not yet finished, but Tharon knew it was going to take several performances of adjusting and fiddling to get the cues right. She had made it clear from the outset, once she saw the technical schedule, that it was going to be very tight for her. She would simply continue to fix, change, and set cues right through the previews.