Word: weismann
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Priscilla Weismann Hanover...
Follies is almost sans plot. Just before his old Broadway theater is to be torn down, Impresario Dmitri Weismann (read Flo Ziegfeld) orders a first and last reunion of his celebrated personnel. All the familiar types attend: Phyllis, the leggy brunette (Alexis Smith) who married well; Sally, the third-from-the-left blonde (Dorothy Collins) who didn't. The bolero-dancing couple (Victor Griffin and Jayne Turner) who bought a Fred Astaire franchise ("Styles change; you never can tell"), the wisecracking queen bee (Yvonne De Carlo) with her hive of young drones; the feathery Continental (Justine Johnston) who remembers Franz...
Unlikely ingredients for forward-looking theater. But around these stereo-and monotypes the past swirls and. flickers, a tincture of antique dreams and topical allusions. Follies is a play full of ghosts. The young hopefuls whom Weismann nurtured scatter their lines across the stage and run unseen by their older living images?a double exposure in three dimensions. The principals are, literally, beside themselves with grief. For, as it happens, the Weismann theater is not the only institution awaiting the wrecking ball. The other is marriage. Sally and her glib, skirt-chasing husband Buddy (Gene Nelson) have become pathetic caricatures...