As is our annual tradition, PJ and I spent a week in New York this past week. The first show we saw this year was the revival of Sondheim’s Follies, which is great! We saw Bernadette Peters in A Little Night Music last year, and so we couldn’t wait to see her in this show too.

Follies takes place on the night before an old theater is being torn down to make room for a parking lot. To say goodbye to the old place, Mr. Weismann, the former producer of “Weismann’s Follies,” hosts a party in the theater for a group of his former performers.

Here’s a quick look at these ladies:

While the former “Weismann girls” remember days gone by, two couples become the focus of the show’s plot: Buddy and Sally Durant Plummer and Benjamin and Phyllis Rogers Stone. Sally and Phyllis were showgirls, and Buddy and Ben are the guys who courted and then married them. The “ghosts” of the past take the stage throughout the show, showing us this courtship and the couples’ interactions. It soon becomes clear that Sally, played by Peters, and Ben had an affair before their respective marriages and that Sally is still in love with Ben.

This leads to one of the great songs of this show, “Losing My Mind:”

On the other hand, Phyllis, played by Jan Maxwell, has grown tired to Ben’s philandering. As she sees Sally make one last play for him, Phyl has to decide what she’s going to do about it, if anything, which leads to her great number, “Could I Leave You?”:

Both of these actresses are great in this musical, but so are all of the other performers. Here’s a look at Terri White’s big number, “Who’s That Woman?”:

The show also stars Elaine Page, who is always great in whatever she does, but my favorite of the other ladies is Solange, played by Mary Beth Peil (Grams in Dawson’s Creek!). She’s the Parisian seductress of the group (at least on stage), and Peil is great singing, “Ah, Paris!”

But the show belongs to Peters and Maxwell, who both deserve Tonys for their work in this production. Follies is a surprisingly affecting musical that I really enjoyed. It’s closing next month, so I recommend seeing it before it’s gone!