Follies - Critical Response

Critical Response

In the foreword to "Everything Was Possible", Frank Rich wrote: "From the start, critics have been divided about Follies, passionately pro or con but rarely on the fence... Is it really a great musical, or merely the greatest of all cult musicals?" (Chapin, p. xi) Ted Chapin wrote, "Taken as a whole, the collection of reviews Follies received was as rangy as possible." (Chapin, p. 300) In his New York Times review of the original Broadway production, Clive Barnes wrote: "...it is stylish, innovative, it has some of the best lyrics I have ever encountered, and above all it is a serious attempt to deal with the musical form." Barnes also called the story shallow and Sondheim's words a joy "...even when his music sends shivers of indifference up your spine."

Walter Kerr wrote in The New York Times about the original production: "Follies is intermissionless and exhausting, an extravaganza that becomes so tedious... because its extravaganzas have nothing to do with its pebble of a plot." On the other hand, Martin Gottfried wrote: "'Follies is truly awesome and, if it is not consistently good, it is always great."

Time Magazine wrote about the original Broadway production: "At its worst moments, Follies is mannered and pretentious, overreaching for Significance. At its best moments—and there are many—it is the most imaginative and original new musical that Broadway has seen in years."

Frank Rich, in reviewing the 1985 concert in The New York Times, wrote: "Friday's performance made the case that this Broadway musical... can take its place among our musical theater's very finest achievements." Ben Brantley, reviewing the 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse production in The New York Times, concluded that it was a "...fine, heartfelt production, which confirms Follies as a landmark musical and a work of art..."

The Time Magazine reviewer wrote of the 2001 Broadway revival: "Even in its more modest incarnation, Follies has, no question, the best score on Broadway." He noted, though, that "I'm sorry the cast was reduced from 52 to 38, the orchestra from 26 players to 14...To appreciate the revival, you must buy into James Goldman's book, which is peddling a panoramically bleak take on marriage." Finally, he wrote:"But Follies never makes fun of the honorable musical tradition to which it belongs. The show and the score have a double vision: simultaneously squinting at the messes people make of their lives and wide-eyed at the lingering grace and lift of the music they want to hear. Sondheim's songs aren't parodies or deconstructions; they are evocations that recognize the power of a love song. In 1971 or 2001, Follies validates the legend that a Broadway show can be an event worth dressing up for."

Brantley, reviewing the 2007 Encores! concert for The New York Times, wrote: "I have never felt the splendid sadness of 'Follies' as acutely as I did watching the emotionally transparent concert production...At almost any moment, to look at the faces of any of the principal performers...is to be aware of people both bewitched and wounded by the contemplation of who they used to be. When they sing, in voices layered with ambivalence and anger and longing, it is clear that it is their past selves whom they are serenading."