Follies
Grand Opera House, Belfast
★★★★☆
Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies is, arguably, the ultimate Broadway musical, so it is hardly surprising that Northern Ireland Opera would have it firmly on its to-do list. But gone are the days when the company annually presented a high-quality piece of musical theatre followed, a few months later, by a fully staged opera.
Since then, Northern Ireland’s arts budget has shrunk significantly and the company’s output reduced to one large-scale work a year, alongside development platforms for home-grown creatives, community and educational outreach, and the Glenarm Festival of Voice.
This year it is capitalising on the popular enthusiasm for Sondheim’s work with the Northern Ireland premiere of Follies, whose complex staging, vast musical scope and visual spectacle throw up considerable artistic and production challenges.
Since its 1971 Broadway opening, the show has proved something of an elusive theatrical undertaking, declared by Sondheim himself to be “an orgy of pastiche”, his favourite musical genre. In counterpoint to his acutely observed songs are Goldman’s time-shifting narrative and the downbeat, emotionally charged mood changes of the principal characters.
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With a background in vaudeville, cabaret, music hall and musical theatre, Follies is right up director Cameron Menzies’ street. His version of Sondheim’s Into the Woods won the Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for best production in 2022, so he has set himself a very high bar. Undaunted, he, with his creative and production teams and the orchestra of Northern Ireland Opera, deliver the dazzling spectacle and musical virtuosity one expects from this highly charged show.
The cast comprises international names such as Lesley Garrett as Heidi Schiller, in her day a stage legend whose beautiful voice is now sadly diminished, and Jacqueline Dankworth as Carlotta, a good-time girl and survivor, who triumphantly resurfaces to smash the bluesy I’m Still Here. In support is an ensemble of rising young Irish talent, together with the renowned local actors Marty Maguire, Darren Franklin, Richard Croxford and Christina Nelson, the latter two touchingly playing Emily and Theodore Whitman, who are still teaching dance in their old age.
A flimsy plastic curtain rises on Niall McKeever’s austere set to reveal a reunion of the Weismann Follies, the flashy showgirls who entertained audiences, night after night, during the years between the two world wars. The suave impresario Dimitri Weismann (Maguire) has invited them, their partners and their ghostly former selves to a party in his crumbling New York theatre, on the eve of its demolition.
Among them are the former best friends Sally Durant Plummer (Anna-Jane Casey) and Phyllis Roger Stone (Annette McLaughlin), with their husbands, Buddy (Mark Dugdale) and Ben (Alasdair Harvey). All four versatile actors turn in powerful performances. As flighty young girls from the sticks (Brigid Shine and Anna Violet), they both ended up married to the wrong boy (Reece McGowan and Chris Kane). Truths about secret affairs and thwarted affections emerge, as they confront the hard facts of growing old and the compromises necessary to shape their future lives.
Follies is at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, until Saturday, September 20th
