FOLLIES. To 31 August
London
FOLLIES
by Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman
Royal Festival Hall To 31 August 2002
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thur & Sat 2.30pm
Runs 3hr One interval
TICKETS 020 7960 4242 (£1.50 handling charge)
www.rfh.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 August
As fine a Follies as we're likely to see or hear.Here's more evidence that Paul Kerryson is the leading Sondheim director in Britain today. Aided by Paul Farnsworth's designs, which miraculously transform the Festival Hall's stage and front stalls into a diaphanous, fragmented old hall of splendour, this production plays on its venue's identity as a large concert hall to create a flavour of old romance and of relations gone wrong.
At the musical's centre are two older couples who could, when they were members of the then-flourishing theatrical Follies, have married each other's partners. Alice is soft enough even now to hope for an elopement with Ben. But despite the bitterness in his relations with Phyllis (Louise Gold gives premium, platinum value to her wonderfully cynical number on the material gains from American-style divorce), Ben isn't moving. So Alice is back with Buddy, who Sondheim sends in as a clown (a splendid showing by Henry Goodman, relishing the chance to diversify his character's hitherto mono-obsessive anguish).
It's this show element that saves the piece from being yet another sophisticated soul and sex-searching piece of musical introspection. It's here the wider cast comes into play; memories are made of such events as this reunion, as the magic of theatre revives just about everyone's younger selves. For the central quartet, it's a retread of the familiar single-mistake-that-sent-my-whole-subsequent-life-awry cliché: as a song title puts it: 'The Road You Didn't Take'.
For the others it's a touching lost-and-gone-forever youth, caught most memorably in a mirror dance, where the present day matrons are paired in a drama studio mirror-image exercise set to music. Their younger selves, kitted out splendidly in glass fragments, seem like broken memories of the lost past, lost selves and lost hopes.
Through all this periodically wafts the spirit of revue; an ethereal chorus of gorgeous spangled Follies-birds whose fantasy parade contrasts the individual characters' earth-bound and sadness-soaked heart-searchings.
Still, it's a musical; bitterness and sweetness alike receive full dance and song measure. Kathryn Evans and David Durham are as good as their partners, while the remaining troupers hoof and sing it magnificently, bringing their various human follies vividly to life.
Sally Durant Plumer: Kathryn Evans
Young Sally: Emma Clifford
Phyllis Rogers Stone: Louise Gold
Young Phyllis: Kerry Jay
Ben Stone: David Durham
Young Ben: Hugh Maynard
Buddy Plummer: Henry Goodman
Young Buddy: Matthew Cammelle
Solonge La Fitte: Anna Nicholas
Carlotta Campion: Diane Langton
Hattie Walker: Joan Savage
Heidi Schiller: Julia Goss
Stella Deems: Shezwae Powell
Max Deems: Nick Hamilton
Emily Whitman: Myra Sands
Theodore Whitman: Tony Kemp
Young Solonge: Juliet Gough
Young Carlotta: Alexis Owen Hobbs
Young Hattie/Margie: Tiffany Graves
Young Heidi (vocal): Philippa Raine
Young Stella: Keisha Marina Atwell
Young Emily: Gabrielle Noble
Dimitri Weissman: Russell Dixon
Roscoe: Paul Bentley
Kevin: Matthew Atwell
Chauffeur: Andrew Wright
Major Domo: Simon Coulthard
Photographer: Craig Armstrong
Director: Paul Kerryson
Designer/Costume: Paul Farnsworth
Lighting: Jenny Cane
Musical Director: Julian Kelly
Choreographer: David Needham
2002-08-14 02:51:20