The Citizen Kane of Musicals

It goes without saying that a theatrical presentation, whether a play or a musical, is a very different creature than a film. One thing they have in common, though, is that the best of them are often under-appreciated when they first appear before getting their due years later. In film the classic example of this is probably Citizen Kane, which now resides at the top of numerous greatest movie lists. After seeing the Kennedy Center's production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, which closes today before heading to Broadway, I think it may deserve an equivalent place among musicals.

Watching the show, as performed by a tremendous cast that included Bernadette Peters, I had two distinct impressions. The first is that the show is a true work of art. The second is that I can completely understand why it didn't catch on with audiences in its original Broadway run.

Whatever theater audiences were looking for in the early 1971, clearly a bittersweet story of middle-aged couples coming to grips with the bad choices and missed opportunities of their youth wasn't it, even if it did feature jazzy numbers like Broadway Baby. The fact that the younger selves of the main characters appear on-stage with the current ones at the same time, not just haunting them but also directly interacting with them, couldn't have helped either. Though the form of the musical requires audiences to suspend at least some disbelief when the curtain rises, you can just tell that this clashing of past and present was a bit much at the time, not unlike Citizen Kane's jumping between time periods and narrative viewpoints was in 1941. Add to that a score whose standout songs, such as Could I Leave You? and I'm Still Here, are far more bitter than sweet and it's amazing it actually ran for a year on Broadway.

It will be interesting to see how the new production does on Broadway. In the 40 years later since Follies debuted there have been nearly as many revivals of Sondheim's shows as there have new musicals by him. In a climate where a show like Book of Mormon or Spring Awakening can be a hit, Sondheim's approach to musicals may not be as off-putting anymore, especially if the majority of the Kennedy Center cast makes the trip up I-95 to New York.

In addition to Bernadette Peters, Ron Raines and Tony Award nominee Jan Maxwell as estranged couple Ben and Phyllis are just two standouts in the cast. Also worth a mention is Lora Lee Gayer, who plays the younger version of Peters' character Sally and could not have been better cast, and theater veterans Linda Lavin and Elaine Paige. In any intersection of art and commerce, nothing is certain, but having the right people in front of and behind the scenes helps, and Follies has that well covered. Of course, the same was true about Citizen Kane 70 years ago.