YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW

Three decades after Sally and Phyllis were engaged as showgirls in the ‘Follies’ revue, they visit the old theatre, their former place of work, for a big anniversary gala. During the time of their first engagement, they also met their husbands Buddy and Benjamin, who accompany them to the reunion with former colleagues and companions. From the great diva to the former theatre director, the surprisingly young-at-heart guests reminisce: not only about stage successes, but also about their respective lives, about right and wrong decisions and what might have been ... The small talk pours plenty of icing over many a bitter experience from the past. The later the evening gets, the more the two couples at the party are caught up in their relationship problems in the here and now: they face long-suppressed truths and ultimately have to set the course for their future.
 
Follies, which premiered in New York in 1971, marks the beginning of Stephen Sondheim's main creative period of twenty years. After the productions A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods, which have already made the Volksoper a centre for Sondheim enthusiasts in Vienna, Follies is now on the programme for the first time in Austria!

FOLLIES: IN LOVE OR CRAZY

Director Martin G. Berger about Follies

‘Follies’ is a word that has many meanings – many people know it as a description of revues such as the “Follies Bergères” or the well-known musical La Cage aux Folles (A Cage Full of Fools). And logically, the musical Follies is also about the reunion of revue girls from the ‘Ziegfeld Follies’ dancers, who were extremely popular and almost idolised in their day. However, the original meaning of the word is ‘fool’ and refers to the young fool in love. It almost seems as if Stephen Sondheim and his author James Goldman have taken the Oscar Wilde quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray to heart: ‘To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies.’
 
The ambiguity of the word is very important, because unlike some attempts – including the version by the Theater des Westens at the German premiere in 1991, with Eartha Kitt and the Kessler twins, among others – Follies is not a star parade with occasional marital quarrels, but rather a Chekhov play with occasional show interludes. Above all, Follies can be understood as a metaphor for the surfaces that the four main characters have created for their lives. Just as there were no problems or conflicts in the revue of yesteryear, the two married couples claim to have good marriages and lie to themselves and each other through their teeth. And just as the historical ‘Follies’ were primarily intended to help people get over the hard years of world wars, Black Friday and poverty, the couples in the play also have a lot of hard relationship truth beneath the shimmering surface.