lets mirroring happen. But the recognition that can result from
mirroring can be complex and disturbing.^6
Follies:Who’s That Woman? That Women Is Me.
Follieshas a mirror scene, and ghostly surpluses to go with it.
A reunion of former Follies performers is being held in the
very theatre where the shows used to be held. The theatre is
being torn down, but the producer of the old shows, Weiss-
man by name (Ziegfeld by lineage), has invited his troupers
from the old days for one last fling. The diegetic conven-
tion is at work, and many of the numbers consist of Follies
veterans performing for one another and for the other party-
goers at the Weissman reunion. The show revisits the old re-
vue tradition, slotting in numbers simply because this is what
old show people do when they have a party. The accompani-
ment for these numbers begins with the four-piece stage band
Weissman has hired for the occasion, then the pit orchestra
joins into the accompaniment, as though there is an ideal Fol-
lies performance built into this party, ready to well up in out-
of-the-blue accompaniment. Also inherent in the party are
ghostly versions of Follies girls, the younger selves of the par-
tygoers, who sometimes mirror the dance steps of the par-
tygoers and add a powerful resonance to the diegetic con-
vention.
There is also a book, which focuses on two of the old-time
showgirls, Phyllis and Sally, who have brought their husbands
to the party. The husbands, Ben and Buddy, were stage-door
Johnnies in the old days, when they were in law school. That is
how they met Phyllis and Sally. The book centers on the un-
happy marriages that have resulted. So Folliesis both a revue
WHAT KIND OF DRAMA IS THIS? 187
(^6) For the mirror effect in literature, see Dallenback, The Mirror in the Text.
Abbate neatly brings reflexivity to bear on opera in Unsung Voices: Opera and
Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century. Postmarxist theory has made the
mirror and theatricality into a special topos. For a summary, see Fuchs, The
Death of Character: Perspectives on Theater after Modernism, pp. 150–51.