Everything Was Possible

by Ted Chapin

  Michael worked with the two dancers who had gone into “Buddy’s Blues.” They had basically been thrown into the number on the day the decision was made to replace the men in drag. Since both Rita O’Connor and Suzanne Rogers were accomplished dancers, putting them in the number had been a cinch. But something was bothering Suzanne: she hated her costume. She behaved as if she just didn’t want to be in the number. Michael explained the tone of the number to them, that it was a vaudeville, pure and simple, and wasn’t really any more complicated than that.

  Alexis got through another performance, but her state of health was still a major concern. And she still didn’t do “Could I Leave You?” Bob Avian and the three stage managers worked with Sheila Smith on the stage, going over all of Phyllis’s blocking and musical staging until 1:30 in the morning.

  Saturday, March 6

  Saturday was another matinee day, and the limited rehearsal time was used for the understudies. Ethel Barrymore Colt, Peter Walker, and Dick Latessa worked through Sally, Ben, and Buddy. I was confused enough about when new pages were and were not supposed to be given to the actors that I hadn’t a clue what to distribute to understudies. George Martin did most of the understudy blocking rehearsal, with Bob Avian and Fritz focusing on Sheila. She wondered what her wardrobe would be—for most of the show she could wear her own dress, but she would have to wear either Alexis’s dress or something else that was conducive to the choreography of “Uptown, Downtown.” (She was already in “Who’s That Woman?” so she knew she could handle that choreography in her party dress.) Fritz wanted to be prepared, so although no decision had yet been made about whether Alexis would be going on for either or both performances, he found an old Hair poster backstage and wrote on the back of it, in big bold letters: “AT THIS PERFORMANCE THE ROLE OF PHYLLIS STONE WILL BE PLAYED BY SHEILA SMITH.” Actors’ Equity rules require that if an understudy or standby goes on for a lead actor, two of the following three steps must be taken: an explanatory slip inserted in the program, a sign put up in the lobby, an announcement made before the performance begins. A slip in the program and a sign in the lobby are the preferred methods, but it takes time to print a slip and stuff copies into all the Playbills. If Sheila went on, she would have to be announced and the sign would have to be hung in the outer lobby before the house was opened. As it turned out, Alexis did perform at the matinee.

  I went to see Prettybelle at its final matinee. It was pretty bleak—some interesting moments and performances, but it felt thrown together. The set looked cheap, the costumes looked like they came off a rack at a store, and the story was unbelievable. Angela Lansbury, with a thick Southern accent, did her best, but with her musical highlight a song entitled “When I’m Drunk I’m Beautiful,” you knew it was doomed. Alexander Cohen and his wife, Hildy, were standing in front of the theater, talking with anyone they recognized. They were gracious enough to say that they had seen Follies and felt that it was “a dream realized.” Luckily, Prettybelle was short, so I could get back to the Colonial to catch the end of the matinee, making a stop to get some more medicine for Alexis. It’s interesting how you can walk into a show midway through and within thirty seconds know exactly what kind of performance the cast is giving and what kind of audience it is. This performance was fine, but Alexis was still croaking her way through “Uptown, Downtown.” When the performance was over, she burst into tears and said, “You’ll be lucky if you see me tonight” as she disappeared into her dressing room.

  Barbara Matera was going crazy. She had been quietly shuttling between her New York shop and Boston, where she was now constructing a new costume for Alexis for “Uptown, Downtown.” Few knew this was taking place; so many in the company had voiced displeasure with their costumes that it would have been suicide to let word get out that changes were even a possibility. Alexis’s Follies costume was revealing and sexy, but it wasn’t particularly flattering, either to Alexis or to the choreography. Phyllis was so repressed that to see her come out with her shoulders exposed and her great long legs was a surprise and a delight. Alexis’s entrance in the Follies sequence usually got gasps, but just because a moment appears to be working doesn’t mean you should stop fine-tuning. That was the thinking behind the new dress. Alexis had broad shoulders, and her spaghetti straps made them look even broader than they were. And although the strips hanging from the waist moved when she danced, they weren’t very graceful. Barbara needed a fitting with Alexis before she could finish the new dress, but because everyone was hovering around the ailing Alexis, there clearly wasn’t an opportune time. Ruthie had accosted Alexis to plead for her to try the new dress on, and in her raspy, coldy voice she said, “What do you want, a performance or a dress?” Later she apologized to Ruthie, saying she often says things that make no sense when she’s stressed.

  The evening performance, the last one for the week, was quite spirited. Alexis performed, again without “Could I Leave You?” She had learned how to make her way through “Uptown, Downtown.” Dorothy, in her demure way, was beginning to get tired of all the attention being paid to Alexis. She knew Alexis was sick, but she was starting to feel overlooked by everyone, and Alexis had started to be a little standoffish with Dorothy anyway. Dorothy had tried to be friendly with everyone, and the rest of the company clearly adored her. But she felt the Californians weren’t friendly. She loved Ethel and wanted to applaud her every night at the curtain call, standing off in the wings as she waited for her entrance. But so as not to insult anyone else, she clapped for everyone until the moment came for her to come out onstage.

  Henry and Mary Guettel were in the audience, along with Bill and Jane-Howard Hammerstein. They all went out to dinner with Sondheim afterward, and Mary said some unflattering things about the show. She regretted her candor later on, and was far more enthusiastic at the opening in New York.

  Sunday, March 7

  This was the official day off for the company, but a few things had to be dealt with. Flossie finally prevailed and got Alexis to come in and try on her new dress. Hal and Michael were both in the theater when she came walking out on the stage with it on. It was still red and pink, but this one was a complete, floor-length, form-fitting Marlene Dietrich evening dress with a high collar, long sleeves, and a skirt of overlapping long fringe going to the floor—and slit all the way up the right side. And it was clearly very heavy. Alexis looked quite unhappy. Flossie and Barbara Matera stood nearby. Michael said, “Okay, execute some of the steps.” She began, and it was immediately evident that the choreography for her number in no way agreed with a heavy long skirt slit up one side. At one moment when she executed one of her moves, a large red bead flew off the dress and rolled off the stage. I picked it up; I still have it.

  “Well, I would have to rechoreograph the whole number,” Michael said. Alexis remained quiet, but clearly hoped the dress would simply disappear; she hated it. Luckily for her, it was never seen again. A new one would be made, but that was still a week away.

  Michael went over “The Right Girl” with Gene on the stage. It seems that Gene had become very upset with the number, and with the show. Gene’s frustration with the number had spilled over into a general malaise with everything. He had exploded in front of Hal and Michael. Hal had experienced this before with Dean Jones in Company and had a premonition that something would go wrong with Gene shortly after the New York opening, at which time he would ask to leave the show. Hal’s premonition was only slightly off the mark: it was a family crisis that nearly prevented Gene from opening the show in New York, yet he remained with it throughout its New York run.

  Jim Goldman met with Hal in the lounge to go over some more changes.

  Steve Sondheim, who hadn’t been seen in several days, showed up, manuscript in hand. It was Yvonne’s new song, finished. There had been very little gossip around the company about the song, so I didn’t know what to expect, but at least it was finished, and Hal was pleased about that. Steve handed me his manuscript, warning that it was the only
copy. Knowing that the stage managers would be anxious for the lyrics typed out, I climbed to the fifth-floor dressing room/office, where the red IBM typewriter awaited. By this time I had a pretty good idea of how Steve liked his lyrics transferred to script format, so I was confident I could extract them from his musical manuscript with few mistakes. I rolled the nine carbon sheets into the typewriter, and began:

  I’M HERE

  Carlotta

  Good times and bum times,

  I’ve seen them all and, my dear,

  I’m still here.

  Plush velvet sometimes,

  Sometimes just pretzels and beer,

  But I’m here.

  The lyrics were precise and well crafted, so it was easy to figure out where the line breaks were. And they were evocative, with wonderful images from American history—breadlines, Beebe’s Bathysphere, the WPA, Greer Garson, Amos and Andy. Herbert Hoover and J. Edgar Hoover were lyrically linked, probably for the first time ever. There was even a line cribbed from dialogue, in the fine tradition of the musical theater. Carlotta once had a line: “Used to be I played the vamp. Now I play somebody’s hot-pantsed mother, stinko by my swimming pool and all my kids are acid heads.” That had become:

  Been called a pinko

  Commie tool,

  Got through it stinko

  By my pool.

  I should have gone to an acting school,

  That seems clear.

  Still, someone said, “She’s sincere,”

  So I’m here.

  I was astounded. The song just kept delivering brilliant images, of events and people from the 1930s and forties, all woven into a passionate and dramatic statement of survival. Wow, I thought, and this from a fairly simple-minded character who had previously sung a clever song with one big double-entendre joke and some tossed-off quips about being a has-been. Now we’re learning who she was, and it was really good. There were a couple of references I didn’t get—Brenda Frazier, Wally and George (later changed to Windsor and Wally)—but I did know about mahjongg, since my grandmother had taught me and my brothers the game that went with those beautiful ivory cubes. Certainly, though, I had never seen it used in a lyric before. Line after line continued to amaze me:

  I’ve gotten through “Hey, you remind me of whoozis.

  Wow, what a beauty you were.”

  Or, better yet, “Sorry, I thought you were whoozis.

  Whatever happened to her?”

  After these lines came a key change. Just typing these words, without hearing the music, it seemed as if the song had reached a different plateau and that a key change would probably be effective. Lyric after lyric was clever, perceptive, harsh, sad, piercing, funny, and honest. And perfectly crafted. In some ways the song seemed to be as much about Yvonne De Carlo herself as it was about Carlotta Campion, and I wondered whether Steve figured that Yvonne would probably not make the connection, which would add a layer of pathos to the performance that couldn’t have been planned. He had been observing her, I thought, and he must have taken in a lot of who Yvonne was to create a piece of material that would give such depth to her character in so emotional a way. (Steve later claimed that Joan Crawford, not Yvonne, was his inspiration.) When I was told that Yvonne’s audition song had been “Ten Cents a Dance,” I wondered if there wasn’t a reference to that in the lines:

  Danced in my scanties.

  Three bucks a night was the pay,

  But I’m here.

  The song would exist very much in the present—a personal statement by a character who had exhausted her repartee for the evening and was now revealing the truth about herself. Steve was replacing a comic turn with a from-the-heart statement. “Fox Trot” was a throwaway expanded beyond its resources. Now it was gone, and it was just possible that in the process Follies was going to gain a powerful moment that would strengthen its emotional center. I couldn’t wait to hear the music that went with these words, especially as I got to the last page:

  I got through all of last year,

  And I’m here.

  Lord knows, at least I was there,

  And I’m here!

  Look who’s here!

  I’m still here!

  Keeping a clean copy for my files, I brought the copies and the manuscript down to Steve. The next step was for Mathilde to create a piano/vocal copy. Then the song could be circulated. This one was definitely a keeper. Little did I or any of us know then that it would become one of Sondheim’s most performed songs, and one whose sentiments, first typed that day by a twenty-year-old gofer, would continue to have resonance for years to come.

  10 “I’m So Glad I Came”

  THE LAST TWO WEEKS IN BOSTON, MARCH 8—20

  Monday, March 8

  Hal Hastings called Yvonne in early to teach her “I’m Here.” They disappeared down into the men’s lounge, where the piano was, and spent the better part of the afternoon going over the song. Hal had to explain some of the references, since Yvonne had a tendency to sing “Amos and Randy” instead of “Amos and Andy.” She was excited about the song, but anxious about just how soon the powers that be wanted it in the show. She had a big job in front of her, and she knew it.

  Gene’s blowup had somehow energized Michael, who attacked “The Right Girl” with a new sense of excitement. He came up with new ideas, including additional swings around poles and an astonishing leap from one high platform on stage right to another. He was also determined to devise an ending that would both act as choreographic punctuation and get a huge hand. Gene seemed to have gotten over his frustration and was excited as well. The number was starting to cook.

  Some new material from Jim had the company somewhat taken aback. Alexis was given new opening lines that she did not like. Dorothy was given some new lines for her “mad” scene following “The Right Girl,” and she wasn’t happy with hers, either. That scene was being tinkered with to get the tone right—it was when Sally thinks that Ben will marry her and is as crazy as she ever is—but one new line in which she speaks about cold corpses had the company actually gasping at the first read-through.

  The evening performance elicited the best audience reaction so far. For some reason, this Monday-night Boston crowd was out for a good time, and they loved it all. Strange that two weeks ago the Monday audience was a total bust, and yet here was a riotous group. They laughed at lines that had never gotten laughs before; they applauded every number; so it was hard to figure out whether the performance itself was any good. Gene, with the new changes for “The Right Girl” on his mind, flubbed the second chorus of lyrics to “Buddy’s Blues.” “Rain on the Roof” was a disaster, while “Ah, Paris!” was in a holding pattern and generally doing fine, and “Broadway Baby” continued to knock ’em dead. The Young Four performed their Follies numbers very peculiarly; apparently they were spooked by a rumor that both songs were about to be cut.

  Tuesday, March 9

  Notes began with Michael’s announcement that the new version of “The Right Girl” would be put into the show on Friday. Then Hal took over, yellow pad in hand. “Not a bad show last night. Pretty good . . .” Ethel, feeling frisky, replied, “Yeah? That what you thought?” “Well,” he replied, “I’ll tell you where I didn’t like you. Were there any places where you didn’t like yourself?” Michael took over: “Hattie, I think it looked like you knew how funny you were last night.” Ethel said: “Well, yes, I did.” “Please don’t tell us—just be funny.” He was similarly concerned about the women in “Beautiful Girls”: “All you girls who come down those stairs are coming down for yourselves. Do not make eye contact with the audience. You are coming down those stairs for a last time. You are not at a performance of the Ziegfeld Follies, so do not play to the audience.” Hal and Michael huddled over a few notes they weren’t sure who should give. Michael said “Who’s That Woman?” was getting sloppy. “When I have fixed everything else in the show—next week, maybe, although I know that’s optimistic—then we’ll clean up the mirror number.”
Hal inserted two new lines before “Waiting for the Girls Upstairs”—“because I would hate for a day to go by without doing something to that number”—and had a few new line readings. To Michael Bartlett, regarding one of Roscoe’s lines, Hal said, “Just relax, will ya? The key is to throw the whole goddamn thing away.” Alexis questioned one of her recently added lines, and Hal told her she could simply cut it. At that, Jim Goldman, who had been lurking out in the house, piped up: “The line should stay as written. It’s needed to make another reference in the speech make sense.” Hal, stealing a glance in Jim’s direction, turned back to the actors. “We’ll take five and talk, and then I’ll have a note for you, Alexis. Cool it.” A compromise was reached; the line remained, but with one minor edit.

  Gene remarked later that he didn’t like the way Hal talked to the actors.

  Wednesday, March 10

  Steve showed up to watch Michael rehearse “Buddy’s Blues” with the two dancers. They were still unhappy with the number. “Act like two of the dumbest showgirls ever,” Steve coached. “Play it absolutely straight. You’ve both been to acting school and have had exactly one lesson . . . any emotion you show is simply what you’ve been taught. But be careful—nothing in the song must ever sound like contempt. The fact is, both Sally and Margie do love Buddy, and he is torn between the two.”