Those beautiful clothesFollies' past and present ghostsare wearing Gregg Barnes's designs

Follies at 40

BY STEPHEN KITSAKOS

When Eric Schaeffer, the tirelessdirector of the new Kenned)' Centerproduction oí Follies, first approachcc

Gregg Barnes and asked him about "doingthe costt:mcs," the Tony-Award-winning de-signer said, "Let's talk first. Let me do a fewsketehes, and if this ain't it, I'll politely how-out." Barnes, who cautions hewould "sell his mother intoslavery" to do Follies, thank-fully didn't have to makethat ehoiee. In faet, this ishis third time costuming theshow that had a short originalBroadway run but establisheda super-sized reputation.

"It's sueh a hard show,"he says. "It's not the biggest,just the most expensive. I'mtrying to make it look likea million bueks. But I don'thave a million bueks." Thebuoyant and affable Barneshas done his homework. Hedesigned the cultish PaperMill Playhouse produetion in1998. ("They renamed theAmtrak to Millburn, N.J.. the'Follies Express,'" he explains,"beeause of all the famouspeople taking the train outto see Ann Miller.") He alsoco-designed, with WilliamIvey Long, the 2007 Eneoresproduetion. Barnes has along list of Broadway designeredits. Including Side Slio-w.Legally Blonde, Dirty RottenScoundrels, Elf and his Tonywinner. The Drozvsy Chaper-one.

But this produetion ofFollies puts him in a uniqueposition. He believes theoriginal 1971 produetion isso beloved and seminal thatit must. In some way, behonored. In diseussions withSchaeffer, whom he describes asa uniquely gifted collaborator,they examined the darkness inthe story and the rieh eomplexity of the seore,huddling over ghosts and memories. Barnessays all the eharaeters in Follies are still alive,and their ghosts are as curious ahout what hashappened to them as the people in the presentare, looking haek on their pasts with that wist-

ful nostalgia we often have about our youth.Operating simultaneously in the past andpresent, he has worked to find a vocabularythat allows his ideas, like layers of elothing, tobe revealed slowly and deliberately.

Taking the strong image of a "brokenfeather," he has designed ghost costumes

ILLUSTRATION COURTESY GREGG BARNES

Tony Award-winning costume designer Gregg Barnes created this ornate dressfor Young Heidi (Leah Horowitz). She wears it for her duet, "One More Kiss,"with her older self, played by Rosalind Elias.

that are somehow disintegrating — a sharpcontrast to the young and dew>' east members."Things are not perfect," he says. "You mayhave a Follies gown that onee had a magiealquality to it, but after 50 years of wandering

CONTINUES ON PAGE 22

The Sondheim Revievií 21

THOSE BEAUTIFUL CLOTHES: FROM PAGE 21

tfirough the theatre, it's slowly sinking to thefloor. It's pieked up a lot of erusty old palletsand pieees." Tfie Young Sally and Young Pfiylliswear, aecording to Barnes, a speetral printthat comes and goes like a memory, but also isreminiseent of tfie period.

Wlien he showed fiis initial rendering toSefiaeffer and Warren Carlyle. the ehoreogra-

ILLUSTRATION COURTESY GREGG BARNES

Gregg Barnes's costume design for the number "Buddy's Blues," featuringDanny Burstein as Buddy Plummer in Follies at the Kennedy Center.

pher, tfiey thought it looked like a girl whofiad been sitting in tfie window of tfie worstdressing room in the theatre — somewfiere ontfie seventh floor —just waiting to see wfiathappened witli lier life. Barnes took tfiat ideaand had the dress painted so it looks as if it'sfaded across the body, bleaefied by the sun.

"But I do it in a way tfiat is subtle enoughto respeet tfie aetor and not eall too muefiattention to itself. What I am trying to do isillustrate that the eharaeters are dragging tfiis

burden around now. I want to make it look likethere is just a breeze blowing aeross the stageand they are light and magieal, just a vision ofan apparition."

Of eourse the original Ziegfeld Follieslooms imposingly over tfie designer's work.Many of our notions of what these early Follieswere like are based on tfie Hollywood films ofthe 1930s that, to some extent, were inau-

thentie. One of Barnes's most intrigu-ing inspirations was a book of publieityphotographs he gleaned from a rabid eol-lector of Ziegfeld memorabilia. Featuredprominently in tfie book are photos ofDoris Eaton Travis, at tfie time of hisresearefi tfie sole surviving Follies daneerat tfie age of 106.

"There's a tribute to her life onYouTube, wfiieh I've watefied about 10times," fie says exeitedly. "But I haveto 'man up' for it beeause I'm just amess when I wateh it." Barnes considersTrav'is's life as an allegory for these Fol-lies — aging, lost dreams, unquenelieddesires. In one photograph sfie is shownwrapped in a piece of tulle beaded witfisequins and pallets like a halter dress."It's a Hame to seduce," lie adds. "I usedthat more than anything else. I had tfiisnotion tfiat the gowns were falling off sotfie upper body is very fragile."

Other ideas eame from the seoreitself. Barnes was very speeifie with HeidiSchiller. She's tfie oldest character atthe party. If tfie first Follies date we areprivy to in the text is from 1918, thenshe was there from tfie very beginning."Her ghost needs to live in a VietorHerbert ambienec. The flip of tfiat arePfiyllis and Sally and a few of those ladieswho were in the most "recent" Follies, in1941. Tfie spirit of those memory ehar-aeters is from the 1940s."

Barnes says he pushed the envelopea bit and made tfie Heidi memory moreVietorian and tfie younger Pfiyllis andSally at the eusp of tfie early 1940s.Photos of Ed Wynn helped to inform"Buddy's Blues," as did images of thedapper Fred Astaire with Ben, elotfied ina beautiful midnight blue suit witfioutany beading, surrounded by everyoneelse swimming in beading for fiis break-down Follies number.

"He's tfie eahn in the storm on the outside,but on tfie inside, of eourse, it's a differentstory. It's a kaleidoscope of information, his-tory and even tfie audience's memories. Youlook at all those things but you also look atwfiat Galliano did on the runway and mix-master all of these things together to comeup witfi good storytelling." And Barnes caneertainly do tfiat.

"You know Bernadette wiuited to wear ared dress when she makes fier entrance to tfie

22 The Sondheim Review

Follies at 40party," he says clfishly. "Dorothy Collins worea frothy thing in the original, and DonnaMeKcchnie wore a pink frilly thing at PaperMill. Of course, I had a moment of 'wow,' butwe talked through the logic, and it made per-fect sense to me. Sally has come to seduce."

The color red has figured prominently inhis designs for other Pollies produetions. Atthe Paper Mill, Liliane Montex'ecchi. a personof decided opinion, according to Barnes,would only wear camel, black or red."We didn't want that character in blaekbecause it would blend into the ghostworld, and eamel is aetually nude, so Itold the director if you want Liliane shegets to hold the red eard."

Shortly thereafter Barnes and AnnMiller were in a telephone diseussionabout what her character would wear inthe same production and he said, "We'rethinking of putting you in black," towhieh she replied in her characteristicvoice, "Black? I'll look like shit in that.Her name's (/larlotta. 1 should be in red."Y\nd in his panic Barnes told her thatnobody would be wearing red, hung upthe phone, and worried for a month,thinking, "Miller's going to show up andthere's going to be a French woman in ared dress."

Thankfully, it all worked out. Barnesunderstands his east members and hav-ing read Miller's autobiography knew shebelieved in reinearnation. He sehmoozcdher with an idea that Carlotta was a per-son who thought she was reincarnatedfrom an Egyptian queen and told her,"Wouldn't it be interesting if she wore adress in lapis lazuli that had a big lotuson the front," and Miller replied, "Keeptalkin' honey. I love where you're going."

If the ghosts and memories of Polliesinhabit their eharacters, Barnes has hisown with which to contend. He grew upin San Diego and remembers, as a kid.subscribing to Theatre Crafts magazineand reading an article about Follies.There was an interview with FloreneeKlotz, the original costume designer,and Barbara Matera, the owner of thepremier costume house serving the New-York theatre. There were photographs ofmagieal, extravagant visions, and theystuck to his brain like the beading on one ofAdrian's dresses. Cut to 1985 and the famousstaged eonccrt at Avery Fisher Hall. Havinglistened to the original cast album "about10,000 times," he was a serendipitous reeipi-ent of one of the coveted tiekets. "It was thefirst magical time I had in theatre," he fondlyreealls. "Barbara Cook sang 'In Buddy's Eyes,'and we were suspended on a breath. And then,in unison, a roar. I had never heard anythinglike that. I was afraid people would throwthemsch'cs off of the baleonv to their deaths."

And so this 2011 Pollies production, he felt,must amalgamate memories, reeolleetionsand tributes. The ghosts of Florence Klotz andBarbara Matera will be there on the "Weis-mann" Eisenhower stage, along with head-pieees ereated for the Paper Mill productionby Woody Shelp, the well-known theatricalmilliner, who died in 2004. Barnes calls him"the Stephen Sondheim of hat makers."

I I I ! II TiniJ COURTESY GREGG BARNESGregg Barnes's gown design for Sally Durant Plummer's song "Losing My Mind,"performed by Bernadette Peters in Follies at the Kennedy Center.

Barnes says, "Everything we do is for theactor, to help that character tell the story. Ilove the well-cut suit, the exquisite dress. ButI only really care about them in relation tostorytelling." After all, that's where the ghostsof Follies, past and present, meet to put ontheir clothes. |TSR|

STEPHEN KITSAKOS is a theatre arts lecturer at theSchool of Fine and Performing Arts at SUNY-NewPaltz.

The Sondheim Review 23