Follies and stuff

Last Thursday Mr. Adult Beginner and I were way up in the balcony at the Ahmandson Theater to see Follies.
I know, Gentle Reader, you’re thinking, “But why would they do that?! Musical Theater sucks!”
And you’re right Gentle Reader, except that this one in particular is one that Mr. Adult Beginner actually likes and I was willing to go along and see what doesn’t suck about it.
Here’s how he describes Follies: “The concept exceeds the music. The music far exceeds the book. The book is lame.”
He also describes it this way: “The music encapsulates the vaudeville theater tradition of the entire twentieth century. The book is two couples fighting tediously.”
Right?
You’re totally sold now too, aren’t you?
So anyway we went to Follies, and turned out I really did like everything about it except the four main characters, and as far as musical theater reviews from the Adult Beginner go, that is a Ringing Endorsement.
So, watching it, I got to thinking about how neat it is to see performers who can dance well and also sing and act, and how that whole Triple Threat thing seems to be mostly a thing of the past, like something olde time Hollywood movie starlets would work hard to be whereas nowadays things seemed very specialized: actors act, singers sing, dancers dance, and some can do all three but they’re pretty much gonna be best at one thing and ok at the other things.
Seems like today’s equivalent of the Triple Threat might be Reality Show, Perfume, Clothing Line.
And then I was thinking about how in some of those old movie musicals you see huge singing dancing numbers with tons of girls en pointe, and, like, how cool that casting call would’ve been and how that probably doesn’t happen anymore either, like, if you want a bunch of girls en pointe in your movie you hire a company, like they did with Black Swan, but you certainly don’t ask them to act.
And then I was thinking about how part of that must be that back during that big movie musical golden age lots of girls just took pointe, maybe it was part of a well-rounded young lady’s education, it wasn’t just a twelve-year-old’s whim, it was a viable job skill even for girls not planning to go pro.
Which reminded me of this part in Allegra Kent’s autobio Once a Dancer… where she mentions that in the early days of the New York City Ballet when she was a baby ballerina coming up through the ranks and catching Ballanchine’s choreographic eye, there were girls in the company who weren’t particularly into dance. Like, it was just a job. Like, they might as well have been shop girls.
Kinda blows my mind considering how each of those positions in the company is so hard fought and won now.

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