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Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a 1971
reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the “Weismann’s Follies,” a musical
revue (based on the Ziegfeld Follies), that played in that theatre between the World Wars. It focuses on two couples, Buddy and Sally Durant
Plummer and Benjamin and Phyllis Rogers Stone, who are attending the reunion. Sally and Phyllis were showgirls in the Follies. Both couples are
deeply unhappy with their marriages. Buddy, a traveling salesman, is having an affair with a girl on the road; Sally is still as much in love
with Ben as she was years ago; and Ben is so self-absorbed that Phyllis feels emotionally abandoned. Several of the former showgirls perform
their old numbers, sometimes accompanied by the ghosts of their former selves.
It sets the stage for a parade of brilliant pastiche numbers, including “Losing My Mind,” “I’m Still Here,” and
“Broadway Baby.”
Surreal, sophisticated, compelling, heart-wrenching and epic in scope, FOLLIES uses the musical theatre as a metaphor for the collapse of American
innocence and naïveté in the post-Kennedy years.
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