© The Orange County Register
Oct. 19, 1996


A Foiled "Follies"
Review: In La Mirada, MTW's splashy staging does best when it sticks to it's star.
by Eric Marchese, Special to the Register

"The Will Rogers Follies," a theatrical life story subtitled "A Life in Revue," is everything showman Florenz Ziegfeld's "Midnight Frolics" - The '20s act starring Rogers and a bevy of gorgeous showgirls - was, and then some. It's that darned "then some," though, that keeps getting in the way.

If only composer/arranger Cy Coleman, lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green and librettist Peter Stone had taken their cue from Rogers himself, who always knew a good thing when he saw one. "The Will Rogers Follies," in Musical Theatre West's original production at La Mirada's Theatre for the Performing Arts, offers only a tantalizing tease of Rogers' genuine homespun wit.

This colorful, lively musical revue, the program tells us, was "inspired by the words of Will and Betty Rogers." And parts of it are, indeed, inspired.

Too much of the time, though, "The Will Rogers Follies" has a bad habit of imitating well-known biomusicals - Coleman's "Branum," for example, and Stone's bright, peppy but ultimately superficial historical musical, "1776."

Comden and Green's lyrics, on the other hand, are frequently sharp, fresh and witty-just the way Rogers liked 'em.

Director-choreographer Roger Castellano has taken great pains to give this "Follies" the authentic look and air of Ziegfeld's famed stage spectaculars. With MTW's crisp, lavish production design (Steven Gilliam's sets, David Edwards' sound design and Jacqueline Jones Watson's lighting), Todd Helm's spirited musical direction, and a convincing bevy of leggy chorines (and Sharell Martin's skimpy but tasteful costumes for them), the big production numbers come off as authentic vaudeville. If the splashy, clever "Our Favorite Son" number doesn't get you cheering, you need your pulse checked.

In the same category are Wayne Bryan's solo stints before the crowd, tossing off some of the greatest, driest witticisms about American habits and foibles ever observed. ("Why does Congress get so sore about my ribbing? When Congress makes a joke, it's a law -and whey they make a law, it's a joke!")

And Bryan has the same sort of likable, down-to-earth sincerity and honesty as the part-Cherokee Oklahoman who "never met a man (he) didn't like" -and a pleasant singing voice to boot. One of Gilliam's expansive vaudeville flats features dozens of handbills stitched together -several touting Rogers as "the Lariat King," "That Roping Cowboy from Oklahoma," and "the Sagebrush Sage."

The show's structure is akin to "Branum": schmaltz and spectacle, sandwiched with the romance of the would-be star and his wife-to-be. Her disenchantment with hubby's show-biz obession is a plot contrivance, reducing the role of Rogers' wife, Betty - talented Tracy Lore has the thankless task here - to sappy hanger-on.

A great figure like Will Rogers didn't need such glitzy, surface-level, artificial treatment. This unassuming cowboy comedian made a name for himself just standing on stage, tossing off observations about life, politics and the human condition, while offhandedly twirling a rope.

Not all of Rogers' bon mots were jokey. Near the end of "The Will Rogers Follies," he notes that "a man makes a living by what he gets; he makes a life by what he gives." It's a moving moment that nicely balances the socko production numbers. And doggone it, Bryan manages, in his final moist-eyed, shy smile as a guaze curtain descends, to capture the essence of Will Rogers.


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