"Follies" is not only Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece, and one of the supreme works of the American theater; it is a stylistic history of the musical as an art form. This song is a recreation of the idiom of Viennese operetta that preceded native-born musicals; other songs in the show are loving tributes to later composers as diverse as Kern, Berlin, Porter and Gershwin. Perhaps my favorite comment on "Follies" came when I attended the wonderful production at the Kennedy Center in Washington some years back. (Linda Lavin singing "Broadway Baby" was worth the price of admission all by itself). At intermission, an elegant middle-aged lady sitting next to me said "You really seem involved in this show. I enjoy seeing other people love the things I love." When I told her that I had driven down from Pennsylvania to see the show, she smiled. "I know just what you mean. I flew in from Denver."
Thank you, Thomas. I came from Vancouver, Canada to see FOLLIES in its first Broadway revival which was unique in its depth of penetration in revealing the joys, sorrows and regrets of those attending a last-chance reunion. It has always been my dream to restore sound and image of the complete performance with the rapidly developing advances in AI technology.
@@ndfrizzle Thank you for your reminiscence. I can't for the life of me understand why "Follies" has never been filmed; among other things, the tone of regret and rueful memory would lend itself to an artful use of closeups. (Not to mention the technical possibilities for the ghosts.) Maybe the Montana-sized eggs that were laid by the film versions of "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" and "A Little Night Music" browned Sondheim off the idea. Incidentally, I love your country. I spend a week every July at the Shaw theater festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, and just bought my tickets for the 2021 season (praying, of course, that this pandemic misery will be over by then, and that the border will be open again.)
Hello, Thomas. I saw the original Broadway production in 1971-1972 a total of 24 times. I have never loved another show so much, and have held so many other shows that I have seen to the standard of the original "Follies" production. I was a senior in high school when I first saw it, and having been a fan of old movies, Alexis Smith was the object of a young man's crush. Also loved Dorothy Collins, Yvonne De Carlo, John McMartin, Gene Nelson, Mary McCarty and all of the rest of the wonderful cast. When I first saw it when it was still in previews, I was instantly enamored and by the time of my last attendance on closing night, I knew the score and all of the dialog. When I saw the revival in NYC in 2011, I cried at the opening bars of the overture. My sister and my husband were with me, and they loved the show. Neither saw the original unfortunately. I still have the original Playbill and the theater program with most of the show's cast having autographed it. I still find it magical to listen to the original cast album, even with the edits.
Awesome comment. I flew from Melbourne to Sydney to see Merrily We Roll Along with my dad a couple years ago and it was incredible. Love the commitment!
This number always makes me cry. This is probably one of the best reneditions I have ever heard of the song...you can just feel the heartache and sadness of older Heidi.
I was backstage with Joan after this show. It was a remarkable night seeing such great legends on the stage in one production! Fantastic cast which we will never see the likes, again.
I'm so glad this cast gets love now. I remember reading the reviews when it opened and everyone just eviscerated it. I think it was still too soon after the original then. No one was prepared to accept anything but sheer spectacle.
It was also pre or after 9/11 happened, when the country was still not in the mood for a show like Follies, which is honestly behind the spectacle a VERY depressing show.
"One More Kiss" is a glorious song (what else is new? It's by Sondheim!); but there is an irony about it that doesn't apply to any other song in the Sondheim canon. It's an attempt (and a superbly successful one) to recreate the musical idiom of turn-of-the-twentieth-century European operetta -- the medium of "The Merry Widow", "The Student Prince", and "The Chocolate Soldier". Yet the entire history of the American musical theater, beginning with "Show Boat" in 1927, was a sustained attempt to break with that tradition, and create a genuinely American music drama that, in its scale and power, was much more closely related to opera than operetta. The subjects that American musicals dealt with -- race relations, wartime romance, East meets West, spousal abuse, gang wars -- were topics that operetta composers like Oskar Strauss and Franz Lehar wouldn't have been caught dead attempting. (Even when Sondheim himself touched upon the operetta form in "A Little Night Music", he did so with a mature, astringent tone that was very much late-twentieth-century.) "One More Kiss" is Sondheim saying to his audience: "This sort of thing can be quite beautiful; but will you LOOK at how far we've come?"
Years ago, I saw a production in a tiny theater in LA directed by Gene Nelson. It was so intimate...we were led into the theater by showgirl ghosts...and I felt like we were part of the party. I loved this version from Roundabout Theater, too. But I feel like it lost something in the bigger venue.
I've always LOVED Blythe Danner!!! I never knew this conversation took place right before "One More Kiss". Joan Roberts is amazing. Who is the young Heidi? From my limited knowledge, she reminds me very much of Jeanette MacDonald with the style of singing & the pursed lips.
Joan Roberts was the first Laurie in the 1943 Oklahoma.She was born in 1917 and died in 2012 at 95..Here it s one of her few video performances.Marni Nixon played the part of the Old Heidi after Roberts left the cast
@BeckoffShow Do you have any proof of this? She was very much alive and living on Long Island as of a few months ago. I did a search online and could find no obituary and wikipedia and IMDb still list her as living. I work in theatre and I haven't heard anything about her passing--surely the death of the original Laurey would have been covered. Are you confusing her with Jane White, her costar in this production of Follies who just died 2 weeks ago?
@Dirkdebruyne Maybe I'll talk about whatever I want? Do you really think it's rude to comment on Ms. Danner's performance in this clip? Anyway, I do know who Joan Roberts is, actually; that she and Celeste Holm are the only two living principals left from the OBC of Oklahoma; that she came out of (stage) retirement after 52 years for this production but left after only a month due to the demands of 8 shows a week and her commute from LI...I can go on...and OF COURSE she still sounds amazing.
Not for one moment does Joan Roberts look or sound as if she is Viennese, or even might be, or would even think to try. Which is why she just have been the perfect Laurey Williams.
Well then again, her character did immigrate to the United States very young and she would have been taught to drop the accent whilst singing, so maybe because she lived in the states for a while, she lost the accent....
@Dirkdebruyne So, what I wrote was rude and what you wrote (that we shouldn't talk about one performer because we're not talking enough about another performer) isn't? Just want to make sure...
"Follies" is not only Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece, and one of the supreme works of the American theater; it is a stylistic history of the musical as an art form. This song is a recreation of the idiom of Viennese operetta that preceded native-born musicals; other songs in the show are loving tributes to later composers as diverse as Kern, Berlin, Porter and Gershwin. Perhaps my favorite comment on "Follies" came when I attended the wonderful production at the Kennedy Center in Washington some years back. (Linda Lavin singing "Broadway Baby" was worth the price of admission all by itself). At intermission, an elegant middle-aged lady sitting next to me said "You really seem involved in this show. I enjoy seeing other people love the things I love." When I told her that I had driven down from Pennsylvania to see the show, she smiled. "I know just what you mean. I flew in from Denver."
Thank you, Thomas. I came from Vancouver, Canada to see FOLLIES in its first Broadway revival which was unique in its depth of penetration in revealing the joys, sorrows and regrets of those attending a last-chance reunion. It has always been my dream to restore sound and image of the complete performance with the rapidly developing advances in AI technology.
@@ndfrizzle Thank you for your reminiscence. I can't for the life of me understand why "Follies" has never been filmed; among other things, the tone of regret and rueful memory would lend itself to an artful use of closeups. (Not to mention the technical possibilities for the ghosts.) Maybe the Montana-sized eggs that were laid by the film versions of "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" and "A Little Night Music" browned Sondheim off the idea. Incidentally, I love your country. I spend a week every July at the Shaw theater festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, and just bought my tickets for the 2021 season (praying, of course, that this pandemic misery will be over by then, and that the border will be open again.)
Hello, Thomas. I saw the original Broadway production in 1971-1972 a total of 24 times. I have never loved another show so much, and have held so many other shows that I have seen to the standard of the original "Follies" production. I was a senior in high school when I first saw it, and having been a fan of old movies, Alexis Smith was the object of a young man's crush. Also loved Dorothy Collins, Yvonne De Carlo, John McMartin, Gene Nelson, Mary McCarty and all of the rest of the wonderful cast. When I first saw it when it was still in previews, I was instantly enamored and by the time of my last attendance on closing night, I knew the score and all of the dialog. When I saw the revival in NYC in 2011, I cried at the opening bars of the overture. My sister and my husband were with me, and they loved the show. Neither saw the original unfortunately. I still have the original Playbill and the theater program with most of the show's cast having autographed it. I still find it magical to listen to the original cast album, even with the edits.
Awesome comment. I flew from Melbourne to Sydney to see Merrily We Roll Along with my dad a couple years ago and it was incredible. Love the commitment!
This number always makes me cry. This is probably one of the best reneditions I have ever heard of the song...you can just feel the heartache and sadness of older Heidi.
I was backstage with Joan after this show. It was a remarkable night seeing such great legends on the stage in one production! Fantastic cast which we will never see the likes, again.
This was my favorite production of “follies”. Just wish the set was as grand as the performances.
How amazing to see and hear Joan Roberts all these ages later, very recognizable both in face and voice.
How incredible to hear Joan Roberts in this role. She was 84 years old! And "Laurey" from Oklahoma! still had "it." Amazing. Thanks for this clip...
I met her and saw this she had more energy than all the other women put together
I'm so glad this cast gets love now. I remember reading the reviews when it opened and everyone just eviscerated it. I think it was still too soon after the original then. No one was prepared to accept anything but sheer spectacle.
It was also pre or after 9/11 happened, when the country was still not in the mood for a show like Follies, which is honestly behind the spectacle a VERY depressing show.
"One More Kiss" is a glorious song (what else is new? It's by Sondheim!); but there is an irony about it that doesn't apply to any other song in the Sondheim canon. It's an attempt (and a superbly successful one) to recreate the musical idiom of turn-of-the-twentieth-century European operetta -- the medium of "The Merry Widow", "The Student Prince", and "The Chocolate Soldier". Yet the entire history of the American musical theater, beginning with "Show Boat" in 1927, was a sustained attempt to break with that tradition, and create a genuinely American music drama that, in its scale and power, was much more closely related to opera than operetta. The subjects that American musicals dealt with -- race relations, wartime romance, East meets West, spousal abuse, gang wars -- were topics that operetta composers like Oskar Strauss and Franz Lehar wouldn't have been caught dead attempting. (Even when Sondheim himself touched upon the operetta form in "A Little Night Music", he did so with a mature, astringent tone that was very much late-twentieth-century.) "One More Kiss" is Sondheim saying to his audience: "This sort of thing can be quite beautiful; but will you LOOK at how far we've come?"
thanks for posting
Years ago, I saw a production in a tiny theater in LA directed by Gene Nelson. It was so intimate...we were led into the theater by showgirl ghosts...and I felt like we were part of the party. I loved this version from Roundabout Theater, too. But I feel like it lost something in the bigger venue.
THAT IS JOAN ROBERTS SINGING ONE MORE KISS...SHE WAS IN THE ORIGINAL 1943 VERSION OF "OKLAHOMA"....
I've always LOVED Blythe Danner!!! I never knew this conversation took place right before "One More Kiss". Joan Roberts is amazing. Who is the young Heidi? From my limited knowledge, she reminds me very much of Jeanette MacDonald with the style of singing & the pursed lips.
Joan Roberts was the first Laurie in the 1943 Oklahoma.She was born in 1917 and died in 2012 at 95..Here it s one of her few video performances.Marni Nixon played the part of the Old Heidi after Roberts left the cast
So beautiful!
Beautiful.
Joan Roberts was 83 when she sang it.its a pity thaty she made few performances in her long life(1917-2012)
I met joan and asked her why she didn t do more roles she said "I had rich husbands and didnt beed to"!!
Do you have anything more of Ms. Danner in this production? Even from just this little clip she seems like an ideal Phyllis.
Tears.
@BeckoffShow Do you have any proof of this? She was very much alive and living on Long Island as of a few months ago. I did a search online and could find no obituary and wikipedia and IMDb still list her as living. I work in theatre and I haven't heard anything about her passing--surely the death of the original Laurey would have been covered. Are you confusing her with Jane White, her costar in this production of Follies who just died 2 weeks ago?
@Dirkdebruyne Maybe I'll talk about whatever I want? Do you really think it's rude to comment on Ms. Danner's performance in this clip? Anyway, I do know who Joan Roberts is, actually; that she and Celeste Holm are the only two living principals left from the OBC of Oklahoma; that she came out of (stage) retirement after 52 years for this production but left after only a month due to the demands of 8 shows a week and her commute from LI...I can go on...and OF COURSE she still sounds amazing.
Does anyone have footage of Marni Nixon in this production?
Not for one moment does Joan Roberts look or sound as if she is Viennese, or even might be, or would even think to try. Which is why she just have been the perfect Laurey Williams.
Well then again, her character did immigrate to the United States very young and she would have been taught to drop the accent whilst singing, so maybe because she lived in the states for a while, she lost the accent....
@@flannerymonaghan-morris1317 There is not a word in the text that suggests she emigrated to the U.S. You made that up.
@Dirkdebruyne So, what I wrote was rude and what you wrote (that we shouldn't talk about one performer because we're not talking enough about another performer) isn't? Just want to make sure...
The girst Oklahoma LaurieJoan Roberts many years later.She had a very long life 1917-2012
@BeckoffShow Great! You scared me for a minute! :)
Wanted to add that I love the stage composition here. Hal Prince has done it again.
Matthew Warchus directed this production, not Hal Prince.
@ruyona you are indeed correct. I confused the name. I am happy Joan is still with us!
Joan Roberts died in 2012 at 95.
SO MUCH scooping! far out!
@Dirkdebruyne Joan Roberts is dead. Hate to break the news to you.