From: devo@athena.mit.edu (Robert Devivo)
Subject: Re: Original cast recording of "Follies" on CD
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 10:21:14 GMT

In article <1993Jan19.084154.12803@athena.mit.edu> devo@athena.mit.edu (Robert Devivo) writes:

>Am I the 
>only one who thinks the technical limitations of the original cast
>recording, and the vocal limitations of its cast, actually add to its
>effectiveness?  Granted, you can't hear half the instruments and the
>score has been gutted to a fare-thee-well, but I really believe there are
>more than a few specks of gold in all that mud.

	Looks like I may be right -- certainly no one on this board
seems to agree with my opinion.  But before you all write me off as a
loony, let me elaborate on this point a bit.

	Vocal limitations do not a bad singer make.  A talented
performer can take the technical shortcomings of his or her instrument
and use them to portray the conflict or struggle in a song with a
thousand times more poignancy than a singer with perfect technique
but no sensitivity towards the song.  This is hardly an original thesis,
and it's been argued much more forcefully elsewhere, but I would
extend the argument to claim that in certain cases a powerful, trained
singer, even a sensitive one, is not warranted for every song.  Barbara
Cook and George Hearn, while certainly no longer in their prime, are
still quite secure in their vocal technique; one (okay, I) cannot listen to
them sing and feel particularly wistful for what they may have lost.
Mandy Patinkin is still fully in the midst of his prime.  These are
performers who are capable of conveying a tremendous complex of
emotions when they sing, but in "Follies" the loss of youth and power
and the fight against that loss are embodied most immediately by the
voices themselves, the medium by which the emotions are carried, and
only secondly by the emotions communicated via that medium.  The
singer is bound up very personally in the meaning of the song, much
more so than in most musical theater music, and the tension between
what's in the singer's heart and what comes out of his or her throat
becomes an almost unbearably strong dramatic force.  One has only to
compare some of the later recordings of Billie Holliday with those from
her youth to know exactly what I'm talking about.

	As for the poor technical quality of the original cast recording,
my point here is simply that an aura of fadedness, of age, of reflections
of the past can be sensed, or at least imagined, in the sound of this
recording.  Does this make up for the cuts, the tinniness, the inept
mixing job?  Of course not, but you take your comforts where you find
them.

>	I've since since the show on stage, and believe me, you're
>better off making up your own book. 

	It's true that the production I saw was thoroughly amateur, and
this may have contributed to my low estimation of the book.  But the
thing that struck me as most dismaying was the way the dialogue kept
undercutting the power of the music by being blunt and obvious when
the songs are indirect.  Part of Sondheim's genius is that he can reveal
far more about a character to the audience than the character ever
reveals to himself.  The book circumvents this sort of dramatic irony by
repeatedly laying things out in the open, making the songs almost
redundant.  There is still much subtext in the book, but I didn't feel it
complemented the music in any way, to my great disappointment.
Skilled actors, however, can make all the difference, and I admit my
judgement here may be precipitate.  Surely someone will produce this
show again on Broadway before I die, and when they do, I'll be first on
the ticket line.


Bob De Vivo