Follies In Concert

Composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim's 1971 musical is winningly restaged in this delightful star-packed extravaganza. Carol Burnett, Barbara Cook, Phyllis Newman, Lee Remick, Andre Gregory, Elaine Stritch, Mandy Patinkin, and others are first seen rehearsing with Sondheim and director Herbert Ross. They have four days. Narrator Roy Scheider follows the cast through their stops and starts, and suddenly, it's showtime. The difference between rehearsing in a flat with a piano, and performing in the Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, is akin to the gap between music on a Walkman, and music on a Bang & Olufsen Beosystem 5500. We're talking MUSIC. All of the performances are wonderful, but Burnett, Stritch, and Patinkin do knockout numbers. Highly recommended.