Everything Was Possible

by Ted Chapin

  The photo shoot over, I got to return the costumes to the theater, park the truck once again, and wait for the next morning, when I could return the truck and retire from my shady role as a teamster fink.

  Tuesday, March 2

  I was sent to Hal’s suite at the Statler Hilton to pick up new pages for a reorganization of what was called scene 6, which included the songs “The Road You Didn’t Take” and “In Buddy’s Eyes.” The order of the two songs was to be reversed, and they were no longer going to be separated by “Bolero d’Amour.” Hal and Michael were sitting and talking, waiting for Jim to arrive with the new pages they had obviously all discussed. When Jim came in, he handed the pages to Hal, who read them, made a couple of notations, and handed them to me with the request to type them out and get them ready for the noon rehearsal. It was about 11:10.

  When the cast assembled, Hal announced the new arrangement of scene 6, but said that he had decided to wait until tomorrow to rehearse it and put it in the show. Michael did some cleanup work on “Loveland,” changing some of the entrances so more of the dancers would enter upstage and sweep downstage with the sequencing of the Follies drops coming in. Because the offstage tap-dance “sweetening” was never in sync with the dancers, the Masonite board was moved to a spot underneath the stage, just outside the orchestra pit but well within sight of the conductor. It was hoped that things would be better coordinated if George Martin and his tap-dancing associates could watch Hal Hastings directly instead of watching the dancers from one side of the stage. Since the taps would be put through the sound system, it didn’t matter where they came from. And as long as the tappers had time to get to the floor below, it would work. It did.

  Among the industry people who ventured up to Boston to see the show were my parents. At the time, my father was working with Leonard Bernstein, who was composing a theater piece for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. With the opening scheduled for September, only seven months away, no stage director had yet been chosen; Jerome Robbins, everyone’s first choice, had passed. Hal was on the list, and so my father decided to come to see Follies, at least partly to report on his work. I had dinner with my parents before the show, then as they filed into their seats, I returned to my lair on the fifth floor to get going with the job of retyping copies of the new version of scene 6 to be ready to hand them out at the end of the evening’s performance.

  When I finished, I went down to watch the end of the show, which seemed very low on energy. The audience was awfully quiet; in fact, it was the first time the “reveal” for “Uptown, Downtown”—the entire dancing ensemble dressed in red tailcoats and hats and a silver fountain set at the rear—got absolutely no applause. “I could absolutely kill you!” Hal exclaimed when he saw me coming across the lobby. “Why did Betty and Schuyler come tonight? This is the worst performance yet! I thought they were coming on Wednesday, and I had a hunch this was going to be a lousy performance.” He added that they would probably tell him they loved it no matter what—so I pulled them aside after the performance and told them to be honest. They were, even to the extent of saying that they didn’t feel Ed Steffe was effective. My father had worked with Steffe in his days with Columbia Artists Management, and liked him, but he zeroed right in on the problem, which was also being felt among the staff: Steffe lacked the presence to play such a commanding role. Hal asked Michael to come over and listen. My parents were quite positive about the rest of the show, but I got the feeling that they weren’t entirely taken with it; they had been big fans of Company, but this one seemed to leave them a little cold. Dorothy met them both and was very cordial, hugging me and telling them that she thought I was great. And Hal did listen to the Bernstein Mass (as it ended up being called), but Gordon Davidson was ultimately chosen to direct the piece.

  Word got around that it was now official: Prettybelle would be closing this weekend and wouldn’t be coming to Broadway. Company’s odds at the Tony Awards had suddenly improved.

  Wednesday, March 3

  Hal began rehearsal by handing out the new scene 6 and telling everyone involved how he intended to work on it: read it through, block it, then break for an hour so everyone could memorize the new lines, then do it onstage. He dismissed those members of the company whose roles were not affected by the change. Generally, everyone took the new scene well, and its staging didn’t look as if it was going to create too many train wrecks. There was work on other bits and pieces: cleaning up the beginning of “Beautiful Girls” with Michael Bartlett; a little adjustment and rehearsal of “Who’s That Woman?”; and the beginnings of some understudy rehearsals in the lower lounge with Peter Walker, understudy for John McMartin, going over Ben’s music with Phil Fradkin.

  Larry Cohen arrived, full of the New York gossip on the show. From Mary Bryant he had heard that several new publications were now interested in doing feature stories, along the lines of the “Prince of the Theater” story that Louis Botto had been working on for Look. That meant good word of mouth filtering back to New York, a very good thing for the show’s prospects. The impression in New York was that the show had gotten great reviews in Boston. Business at the box office had started very strong, and there were hopes that it would continue. One curiosity: Larry had been in the Prince office one day when Joanna Merlin seemed to be on the phone with the agent of one of the lead understudies, and the agent was telling Joanna that he didn’t think his client should ever go on in the role. He had been to Boston, seen the show, and frankly didn’t feel his client was up to the rigors of the role.

  At half-hour, Ethel was nowhere to be found. Fritz called her hotel; she answered the phone and said that her clock must have stopped at six o’clock, since that’s what it read. She got to the theater as quickly as she could.

  Alexis was in great spirits, though she confessed in a quiet voice that she had no idea what her singing would be like tonight. She had been fighting a cold all week, and no one had seemed to care, but now it was beginning to affect her voice. Once the performance began and she spoke her first line, it was apparent she had a problem. You could sense everyone clutching as they wondered what was going to happen when she had to sing.

  Alexis Smith—cool, sophisticated, soon to become the

  real star of the show.

  There is never a good time for people to get sick on a show. And out of town is the worst time possible. Leading actors being sick can mean either Ruby Keeler—like 42nd Street moments when unprepared understudies go on, or in the worst case, having to cancel a performance. In the case of Follies, although understudies—actors already in the show who learn other roles—had been assigned, there had been no time to rehearse. (There were no standbys—actors who are not in the show but cover leading roies—yet hired either.)

  In addition to Alexis’s obviously deteriorating condition, the audience seemed to be the stoniest one yet—no one in the Prologue or “Beautiful Girls” got a hand—and the orchestra must have been filled with subs because there were wrong notes all over the place. As soon as Alexis tried to sing the line “Waiting around for the boys downstairs,” it was very clear she was in big trouble. Pitch was nowhere to be found, so she simply spoke her remaining lines. Even so, the song was still having problems landing. And everyone onstage seemed suddenly to get nervous. Little mistakes were made. Ethel missed one of her lines in the party scene, John McMartin seemed unclear of the staging in the newly restructured scene 6, and the Montage was very low in energy. Alexis barreled through until intermission, but it was obvious that she’d never be able to make it through “Could I Leave You?”—one of the few moments in the show that had come to be rock solid. At the start of the intermission, Hal was standing at Fritz Holt’s desk looking at the script and trying to figure out what cutting the song entirely would entail. His mood was strained; it was almost as if he couldn’t believe anyone would have the audacity to get sick. Fritz went out into the auditorium to find Michael. All three looked over the
script and worked out how to adjust the cues to allow for the song simply to be excised from the performance. Agreeing that this was the best thing to do, they summoned Hal Hastings, who went over it with Fritz. As Fritz canvassed the crew and told them about the change, Hal summoned the Old Four and the Young Four to Alexis’s dressing room to go over the changes with them. They were attentive and focused. Fritz then made a special announcement backstage over the sound system, alerting everyone that “Could I Leave You?” would not be performed. The audience would have to take the show as it came—they knew that when shows are out of town, the listing of musical numbers may not accurately reflect what is performed onstage.

  The second act went off without too many problems, although Alexis sounded pretty grim in “Uptown, Downtown.” When she came out for her curtain call, the entire company applauded her. Then once the final curtain came down, the company applauded her again. Company manager John Caruso had phoned a doctor, and as soon as she was out of her costume and into her street clothes, she was taken off to see a specialist. She was amused that no one had paid any attention earlier in the week when she announced she wasn’t feeling well, but now that she’d lost her voice it was a crisis. As she was whisked off to the doctor, Hal told Sheila Smith to begin learning the role. Sheila Smith was listed in the program as the standby for Yvonne and Fifi only, but no one was listed as either understudy or standby for Alexis. The original notion had been for Yvonne to cover the role of Phyllis, but I think that began to fade as soon as rehearsals started. No one had paid much attention to the whole issue.

  The company rumors were that Yvonne’s new number was going to be a Harold Arlen—style blues song and that Steve was also fiddling with “Uptown, Downtown.” Steve hadn’t been seen in a few days, so it was only natural that rumors would get started. In this instance, however, they were true. Michael was never happy with “Uptown, Downtown,” felt that because it came late, he never had proper time to plan for its staging. It had been shoved at him at the last minute, and he asked for a new number. Judy Prince was said to be in favor of a new number as well. Steve was willing to oblige.

  Larry Cohen watched the show, sitting next to an old couple who just loved it. They were so grateful to be seeing a musical with old people in it—and couldn’t fathom why anyone young would have the slightest interest in the show. In the old days, you see, people had talent—not like today. Of course, they had come to the show with no idea it was a musical.

  Thursday, March 4

  Despite this being a matinee day, Sheila Smith was called at 10:30 A.M. to go through Phyllis’s material. She pointed out to Fritz, nicely but firmly, that she believed Yvonne had a contract to cover the role, that she did not, and that if she were to go on, technically she would be violating both her own contract and Yvonne’s. Fritz said he would call Carl Fisher and see that it got straightened out. Hal, realizing there was now a strong possibility that Alexis would have to miss some performances, spoke with Yvonne about her no longer covering the role. The report that filtered back was that Yvonne was relieved.

  First Sheila went through all the music in the lounge with Hal Hastings and Phil Fradkin. Hal said she was fine but that her singing was one-dimensional. Then she went onstage, where George Martin took her through the staging. John Grigas remarked, “That girl is terrific.” I was sent to the music copyists’ suite at the Bradford to pick up copies of Phyllis’s songs so Sheila could have her own set. Of course, the decision whether she would fill in for Alexis had not yet been made, but everyone knew that they had better be prepared for the possibility. In the end, Alexis played the matinee, using a speak-sing style with whatever voice she had, still not attempting to perform “Could I Leave You?”

  Yvonne, concerned about her new song, went to Steve’s hotel room at midnight, in tears. She was convinced “Fox Trot” was being replaced because she was incompetent, that she was performing it badly, and that no one was telling her the truth. Steve tried to assure her that there was nothing wrong with her performance, that the reasons for replacing the song had to do with the song itself. He didn’t think he was totally convincing, although what he said was the truth. Maybe just unburdening her woes made her feel better, but Steve was already hard at work on the replacement.

  At noon Gene was called for a rehearsal of “The Right Girl.” This number wasn’t landing the way Michael wanted and hoped it would. He kept working at it, trying to find steps that Gene could execute well and that would make the staging exciting. He knew the set gave him ample opportunities for Gene to fly around, leaping from platform to platform, but he also knew that Gene was still nervous, and that his nervousness was coming across in performance. Michael seemed to have more patience with Gene than with some of the other performers, but he was still pushing, trying to find a balance between something that Gene could execute well and that was still exciting and energetic. He knew it wasn’t there yet.

  The matinee performance was energized, partly because the entire cast of Prettybelle was in the audience. Since their closing notice had gone up, and because they played their midweek matinee the day before, on Wednesday, Hal had issued an invitation to the whole company. Angela Lansbury was in “house seats”—good locations held back from public sale to be purchased by people connected with the show, but since the box office wasn’t prepared for the number of people who took Hal up on his offer, the Prettybelle company manager, Seymour Herscher, worked with John Caruso to find locations for everyone. Not only would Angela Lansbury be in the house (audiences are always atwitter when a celebrity is spotted), but so would Jon Cypher, the originally cast Ben Stone who had taken the lead in Prettybelle after dropping out of Follies. He had the grace to write a note to Hal after the performance saying what a wonderful show Follies was, and adding that he would have had a nervous breakdown if he had stayed with it. (He also penned a very cordial fan letter to John McMartin.) Lansbury came backstage after the performance and congratulated everyone. She was very cordial to all, and told Yvonne she was marvelous and asked if she had ever been on the stage before. A somewhat nonplussed Yvonne concluded later that Angela must have been in a state of shock since her show was closing.

  “Bolero d’Amour”—The young ghost figures,

  Michael Misita and Graciela Daniele.

  Graciela Daniele fell at the beginning of “Bolero d’Amour” and did the rest of the number with a sprained ankle. At intermission she was sent to a doctor, and Bob Avian gathered the dancers to discuss the changes needed in the second act to compensate for her absence. To keep the pairings equal in “Loveland,” one dancer was taken out and his line given to someone else. With Michael Misita now back in the show but looking wan, Young Vincent and Young Vanessa seemed to be the cursed roles so far. But Graciela would bounce back by the evening performance, Ace bandage securely in place.

  I had dinner with Larry Cohen and Paul Gemignani at the Union Oyster House, a Boston landmark on Stuart Street. Mainly we gossiped about the show: Larry hadn’t seen it since the opening and questioned whether a lot of the new changes were taking the show in the right direction. There was a lot of tinkering going on, and we all wondered whether some wholesale changes weren’t more in order. It seemed clear that the libretto was going to stay as it was—any notion Michael may have had about bringing in someone to write jokes or spruce up the dialogue seemed to have vanished. We all agreed that the opening needed to be fixed, but Michael did seem to be working on that, although we couldn’t tell how much fixing he was actually doing. Paul had some specific criticisms of his own, but as he and his drum set were in the pit for performances, his vantage point was not ideal. And he was annoyed by something else: he wanted to conduct; he wanted the job as assistant conductor on this show. The man who had been hired, but who wouldn’t join the company until New York, had fine credentials. Paul Cianci by name, he had studied with Pierre Monteux, had conducted several Broadway shows, and perhaps most important, had been the assistant on Funny Girl, where he had kept Barbra S
treisand happy. Paul was annoyed that he wasn’t being considered for the position. (He did stay with the show, and must have played his cards right because he ultimately did take over as conductor, and has gone on to become Sondheim’s number-one musical director to this day.)

  After the performance, Larry Cohen met with Steve, who hadn’t been seen around the theater for days. Steve played him the new song he was writing for Carlotta, which he was quite pleased with. Larry liked it and felt it would be perfect for Yvonne, but Steve was disheartened because neither Hal nor Michael had reacted favorably to it, and he couldn’t see starting over again. They also discussed some current company rumors: that both Fifi and Ed Steffe would likely be gone before the show got to New York, and that Hal was considering postponing the Broadway opening. Steve felt that Hal was on the right track with changes but that Jim was proving to be obstinate.

  Friday, March 5

  Hal was in an agitated mood. He had a lot of little line fixes he wanted to follow up on and was annoyed that some of them hadn’t yet been given to the actors. There did tend to be a certain level of confusion between Hal, the stage managers, and me about what was to be typed and what was to be handed out to the actors—and when. Hal wanted to keep working on little improvements in the dialogue, which now included a speech for Roscoe in the very beginning in which he talks about feeling useful—“so many of my friends have given up.” The speech lasted only for a couple of performances.