Everything Was Possible

by Ted Chapin

  Fritz Holt was once again in charge. Boris and Lisa were in the auditorium watching, noting things that needed to be attended to and available to answer technical questions as they arose. Tharon Musser and Spencer Mosse were there as well, doing what they could with the lights until they were given their time to focus. Jack Mann was rummaging around, setting up his sound equipment.

  The rehearsals, back downtown, were mostly about maintenance and filling time while waiting to get into the theater. Obviously, everyone was excited about being back in town, and everyone had felt a boost from the success of the new Prologue. Michael still had a few details to clean up, but now that the company had become used to the actuality of the set, the possibility of getting anything done on the flat floor of the rehearsal room where it had all begun was remote. Hal ran a few of the notorious trouble spots, but the day was decidedly taken at ease. Mary Bryant had designs on the leading ladies, as several publications, including the New York Times, wanted to do triple profiles of Alexis, Dorothy, and Yvonne.

  By Tuesday morning the set was basically back together. Crew members were everywhere, welding pieces of metal, focusing lights, pushing and prodding planks. The piano was up on its platform for the onstage band. I climbed up to the theater’s small balcony, which only had seven rows, and took a look at the set. The two proscenium pieces had been installed, and the downstage towers, which had been obscured by the proscenium in Boston, were now visible. For the first time, the design made complete sense. Boris had taken every aspect of this theater—the good parts and the bad—into consideration. He had designed the set in Cinemascope. The skeletal nature of the side units and the towers offset the gray floors of the central stage platforms. The light bridges were more visible, both on top and on the sides, which simply added to the overall sense of theatricality.

  The company was called to the theater in the early afternoon. The plan was first to get acquainted with the new surroundings and then to get back onstage. Fritz and George and John had been preparing for everyone’s arrival, having made the dressing-room assignments. Unlike at the Colonial, there were no dressing rooms on stage level; they were all up at least one set of stairs. That was the lay of the land, and there was nothing to be done about it; but the rooms assigned to Alexis, Dorothy, and Yvonne had been decorated to suit their individual tastes, a clever way of welcoming stars to what are, in truth, tiny, dark, and rather unappealing rooms. There were fewer flights of stairs than at the Colonial but also fewer dressing rooms. There was still a stage managers’ office on one of the higher floors where the sturdy red IBM typewriter was properly installed.

  Another problem was traffic. Dressing rooms at the Colonial were all off stage left; at the Winter Garden they were all off stage right. That meant that every entrance had to be rethought, since the amount of time needed to get from dressing room to stage would be different. This had, of course, all been discussed, but there were divas in our midst. And the reality is that despite Broadway’s aura of glamour, there is nothing remotely glamorous about the backstage of a Broadway theater. The stages are small, and the support facilities are squeezed into any available space, usually upstairs or down in the basement. But today the company had bigger things on its mind, so no one was about to make trouble over space or dressing-room assignments. What they were really concerned with was facing that first New York audience in two days.

  After finding their dressing rooms and being shown where the pass doors were to get out into the house, the company assembled in the first few rows. Steve and Jim were sitting farther back, talking with each other and with Boris and a few others who were straggling in. Hal leaned up against the orchestra rail and gave a brief welcoming speech. “Well, we’re here,” he began. He was anxious to do a run-through, obviously without costumes and lighting and orchestra, but he also knew better than to rush the technical preparations. Looking around, he smiled and said, “Clearly, they need every available moment.” Michael ran a couple of things—first “Loveland,” changing a few of the steps, and then “Love Will See Us Through,” stopping to work with Harvey Evans and Marti Rolph. Steve had cut a part of the verse late in Boston, but otherwise the song hadn’t been touched in weeks. It was strange for that song to be rehearsed at this point; it seemed as if something was up, but no one could tell exactly what. Michael was focused more on the performances than on the staging itself. Then he ran through the new Prologue, just to make certain Saturday night in Boston hadn’t been a fluke.

  At 3:45, after both Hal and Michael had finished with their small rehearsals, Hal called for a run-through. He wanted everyone to get the feel of the theater, which was very different from the Colonial. Unlike during the tech period in Boston, there was now a general sense of confidence. Ethel, as always, was a pro, and paced her new route from the dressing room to the stage. She was loving it—ecstatic to be back in the Winter Garden, where she had made her Broadway debut in The Passing Show of 1922. And Fifi seemed resigned to her place in the show. She had figured out that Follies wasn’t about Solange LaFitte. She wasn’t going to make a fuss about her song; she wasn’t going to make a fuss about anyone else’s role; and she had also got the message loud and clear that Ethel wasn’t interested in being her buddy. But she hadn’t been totally overlooked: toward the end of the Boston run, she was profiled in the Boston Record American, where she finally found a willing audience for her stories about her “famous feud with Earl Carroll” and her “tantrum that wrecked a Cleveland dressing room” and her “bath in the public fountain in the center of Indianapolis.” For the press she was full of spirit: “Now I’ve finally made it. I don’t want to go back to my youth. I was always worn out then. Youth can really do a woman in! Oh, la la!”

  The run-through was exciting, and there was something special about finally seeing Follies on the stage for which it was intended. The company felt good about it, and as soon as it was over, the stage was turned back to Fritz and the crews. Rehearsals now were moved to the Broadway Arts Studios, uptown on Broadway, above a car dealership.

  Michael went on polishing numbers, some of which needed no polish, but he was a perfectionist and wanted to fine-tune every moment. “Buddy’s Blues” was this afternoon’s victim, with Buddy and his two Follies girls, who finally accepted the number and performed it well. “There’s a step that will get you a hand when you three cross the stage together—let’s find it,” Michael said. Gene suggested a certain dance figure, which Michael graciously accepted. “Okay, then, let’s see what happens if you strut, corny as that may sound.” It worked, and the number was better. He also mentioned a little technical addition to the number that was scheduled to be tried as soon as the stage was available. Then he took the women through the mirror number, and gave supportive notes: “Start off looking absolutely glamorous. But remember that you are chorus girls who are having fun.”

  By Wednesday, all departments had gotten themselves organized and reasonably ready for performance, but this was the day for everything to be a little off. The afternoon run-through added costumes and orchestra. Sound wasn’t finished, nor was the lighting ready. There was excitement, yes, and anticipation, but there were also raw nerves. Steve announced that this was one day that he always hates, because what seemed so together three days earlier always falls apart in the interim and needs to be put back together; at best it’s always ragged. Little mistakes were made: Ethel Shutta took a fall but picked herself up and continued; Justine Johnston dropped her cane, which rolled off the stage; and some of the costumes were off being repaired. The orchestra seemed very loud, especially during the moments of underscore. Hal wandered down to the rail, yelling that the music was too loud. Sheila Smith, who had been with Mame at the same theater for years, muttered quietly that the orchestra was always too loud in the Winter Garden.

  After a dinner break, during which the crews kept working, there was a full dress rehearsal at the normal evening performance time. There was no audience, but many members of the greater Follies famil
y were on hand. Judy, the people from Hal’s office, Mary Bryant and her staff, many of the design assistants, and the usual friends at court. Martha Swope and her assistants wandered the first few rows shooting the show, and Van Williams, another theater photographer, was moving around the theater as well, taking shots from different vantage points. Earlier, Mary Bryant asked me to come to the back of the theater because she wanted a photograph of Hal and me together “for the files.”

  The show looked and felt great. The lighting had come a long way from the day before, and what was now onstage was the show that had closed in Boston. It was home. Not only did the set look as if it belonged in the space but the lighting was more precise and atmospheric. The sound was complete, although there was talk about rerecording some of the sweetening vocal tapes to suit the specific acoustics of the theater. Since the audience was never to know the tape was playing, it was important that it sound exactly like it was coming from the mouths of the people onstage. After the curtain came in, Hal called for it to be raised, then went down to the orchestra rail, thanked everyone, and told them all to go home and get a good rest. There would be a rehearsal in the afternoon tomorrow, then the first New York preview at night. He felt they were ready and was very upbeat.

  On Thursday afternoon, once the cast had assembled, Hal announced that the intermission would be in a different place that night. The question of the intermission—where it should go, and whether there should be one at all—had been dormant since the beginning of the Boston run, where, after a couple of previews without one, the show had played consistently with a break following “Too Many Mornings.” Someone had now changed his mind—no one knew who—and Hal announced that the act would end several minutes earlier after “Who’s That Woman?” thus saving both “I’m Still Here” and “Too Many Mornings” for the second act. This came as something of a shock to everyone, but as always, Hal was firm in his control and fierce in his determination. The first act would now close with the ending of “Who’s That Woman?” and the second act would begin back into the middle of the song, so the ending would be repeated. Then things would proceed as before, with Weismann saying, “Are there any hungry actors in the house?” after the applause, followed by Stella’s line, “Wasn’t that a blast?” which often elicited a second hand. “Who’s That Woman?” had consistently stopped the show, so ending the act on it would clearly create a rousing finale to act one. Since the time sequence of the entire show was essentially continuous, it didn’t matter where the break came, and this way would make it even more obvious that the second act continued directly from the first. Michael found an appropriate spot in the number to begin again, and then, in consultation with the two Hals and Steve, ascertained where the orchestra should start and when the curtain would rise.

  Then Hal spoke again. “We don’t have time for a lot of little things, although there were a lot of things that distressed me during last night’s run-through. We’ll work on them today, tomorrow, and Monday, and the rest of next week we’ll work almost exclusively on music.” He then gave specific notes, some of which he admitted were things he just hadn’t noticed in Boston. He told Fifi that she was “doing something horrible—wagging your finger as you cross on ‘Beautiful Girls.’ ” “But I’ve been doing that for four weeks!” she said. He saw Ethel Shutta chatting with Mary McCarty during the number, something she had also been doing for weeks. He thought Ethel’s line readings in her first scene were growing dull. Her joke wasn’t landing: “It’s always sad to lose a husband. I lost five.” She vowed to do it better. He said that Heidi Schiller (Justine Johnston) would be seated onstage and simply revealed rather than make her entrance, which seemed to be getting longer and longer with each performance.

  Michael was next. He was upbeat and cheerful. “You all played with a hell of a lot of energy, and that’s great. The Prologue was good, but it has to be played a little faster.” He complimented the women on the mirror number, reminding them always to keep smiling, that everyone is watching their faces, which must show enthusiasm and spirit. He wanted to fix several things in the “chaos,” making certain everyone was aware of entrances and exits—especially the exits, as they had to be quick, since the scene that followed was very quiet. He wanted Young Sally and Young Phyllis to be in their Prologue costumes—identical feathered and beaded chorus outfits, one black and one white—which they would keep on for the final scene. Young Buddy and Young Ben would be in their casual street clothes, but placing the women in Follies clothing put them squarely in the world of the past. He had a few other fine-tuning thoughts: he asked for the music for “Loveland” to come in three beats later because it was so loud, and he wanted only two bars of vamp before “Beautiful Girls.” He cut the musical “button” from “Bolero d’Amour” so that it would continue into the next scene without a stop.

  As in Boston before the first paying audience, all the tech paraphernalia had to be cleared from the auditorium. There was less of it, but when the house lights were brought up full in preparation for the crowd, things were reminiscent of a month earlier. The ushers were loading Playbills in stacks at the rear of the aisles. Outside the theater, there was some new activity: sign painters were now hanging from the top of the big billboard, painting the word “FOLLIES,” with headdress, in the middle of the white expanse.

  There was clearly a buzz in the house as the audience entered. They looked to be an eclectic mix of musical-theater buffs, Follies fanatics who must have been in Boston at some point over the past few weeks, and just plain theatergoers, although the latter group was clearly outnumbered by the former two. Whether they had seen the show in Boston, or just heard about it from someone else, this audience was crackling with excitement. The buzz continued as the house lights dimmed and the drumroll began. “Bravo” was yelled along with applause as Yvonne and Alexis made their entrances; the others just got applause. Each woman received a hand as she appeared at the top of the stairs for “Beautiful Girls.” That never happened in Boston. The audience was attentive from beginning to end. They laughed at the humor and clapped wildly at the end of the songs. When Ethel brought down the house with “Broadway Baby,” Hal, standing with the entire creative staff at the rear of the theater, turned and said, “You know, 70, Girls, 70 is all about getting out there and strutting your stuff, but there is really only one old person today capable of doing that—and we have her.” There were big laughs on some of the more campy lines, like Alexis’s “Let’s dish” to Dorothy, and Yvonne’s “I haven’t seen your picture in the papers in a while” to John. At the end, there was a long and loud response for each principal during the curtain call. Everyone was relieved and excited. It looked as if New York would take to the show. We had made it this far, but the creative staff still wanted to tinker. And there was only one week left until the critics arrived.

  I loved what the show felt like in the Winter Garden. It fit the space like a glove; somehow the scale of the theater, the production, the actors, and the text all meshed into one. I couldn’t imagine it anywhere else, and had almost forgotten what it looked like at the Colonial.

  When the company assembled in the house for Friday-afternoon notes, Hal told everyone, “Well, I guess they liked us.” There was a distinguished, silver-haired man standing nearby, diminutive in stature but elegant in style. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Arnold Moss. As of tomorrow night, he will be assuming the role of Dimitri Weismann.” The announcement came with no more preparation than that, but it was long felt that something like this was in the works. Moss had auditioned on Sunday, and it had taken the week to make a deal with his agent. Ed Steffe was staying on with the company and had agreed to remain as the standby. He was present, and was extremely gentlemanly about the whole situation. It was then Moss’s turn to address the company, and he said that he had watched the show the night before and knew that it was something quite extraordinary. He said he was honored to be part of the company and would do his best to get up to speed as quickly as
possible. It was hard to fault management’s decision, and the company just accepted the news. It was too close to the opening for anyone to feel that there would be another firing, even if this one brought the total to three: Donald Weismuller, Dortha Duckworth, and Edwin Steffe.

  Hal proceeded to give a slew of little notes, tossing each page into the orchestra pit when he was finished. Small line changes continued—Ben’s joke line to Carlotta about the pronunciation of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s name was cut—and there was plenty of tinkering with staging moments. Steve had a few musical notes that Hal Hastings took on. They were, as always, about staying with what was written and not taking liberties.

  I had been maintaining an up-to-date script all through Boston and I had used it to make copies of pages as needed, but Arnold Moss’s arrival caught me off-guard, and I hadn’t heeded the warning I had been given that there would be auditions for a new Weismann. I hadn’t had time to prepare a copy for him. I was asked to hand over my copy, which I did, reluctantly. He learned his lines quickly, however, and was able to return my script to me within a couple of days. Some requests for the script were beginning to come in from the press, so I needed to have a couple of extra copies on hand. To do that, I went to the Prince office in Rockefeller Center and fed the pages, one at a time, through the Xerox machine. There was always some good gossip to get from the people who were office-bound, but mostly they wanted to hear from me about what was going on in the theater.

  The new placement of the intermission was deemed a partial success. Hal said it “helped the book in every possible way.” But starting the second act in the middle of a song seemed confusing. Turning the clock back in real stage time was one time twist too many; some audience members thought it was just a mistake. So a new decision was made: tonight the second act would simply begin with the final tableau of the song—exactly where the curtain had fallen at the end of act one. If anyone was alert enough to notice, the song ended in a spread-out version of the initial pose in which the six present-day women stood in three pairs. There were now six pairs, with each woman opposing her own ghost figure. It was the culmination of some brilliant staging—the stage now filled with twice as many bodies, half of them in the present and half in the past. That was the image the audience would now experience both at the end of the first act, and at the start of the second. And so it was at Friday night’s performance.