The Will Rogers Follies @ Plaza Theatre

Photos by Christina Hopper and Hannah Midkiff Photography

—Jan Farrington

I think cowboy philosopher Will Rogers (1879-1935), would have a great time watching the oddball, funny, wink-wink version of his life told in The Will Rogers Follies: A Life in Revue. This small-town fella from Oklahoma always was more sophisticated than he looked. The cowboy jeans and rope tricks were for real, of course, but there was a lot more to Will than anyone might have expected. That’s why he became one of the 1920s-1930s favorite Americans: political commentator, newspaper columnist, radio humorist, and movie star—the friend they never met in person, the shy-smile guy who said “I never met a man I didn’t like.” When I was a girl in the ‘50s and ‘60s, older people still talked about the sad day in 1935 when they heard Rogers had died in a plane crash up in Alaska, piloted by his friend, aviation pioneer Wiley Post.

Cleburne’s Plaza Theatre Company is running the Follies through May 6, starring artistic director JaceSon P. Barrus, who played the role 13 years ago for Plaza. (Barrus co-directs with Emily Potter.) In 2018, the company moved into a much larger theater space in downtown Cleburne, where (during the pandemic) they made news on CNN by offering “drive in” live theater performances—actor/singers out in front of the hall, audience parked in their cars listening to a radio transmission of the show. Honk if you’re having fun, folks!

But back to the Follies. When the original show won six Tony Awards for the 1990-’91 Broadway season, The New York Times called it “a corn-fed, all-American extravaganza complete with rope tricks, a dog act and long-legged Ziegfeld chorines.” Theater critic Frank Rich said it was the oddest roped-together musical marriage he could remember: the homespun, dry seriousness of Rogers’ style married to the glitzy, be-feathered world of the Ziegfield Follies of the 1920s and ‘30s. And yet, Will was one of Ziegfeld’s biggest stars—and Mr. Z knew what he was doing.

Cy Coleman wrote the music, Betty Comden and Adolph Green the lyrics, Peter Stone the book—and Fort Worth’s Tommy Tune did the choreography (perhaps why the Ziegfeld girls are allowed, almost, to steal the show). Maybe Follies was simply “meta” before meta was cool—talking to the audience, yakking with long-gone folks like Ziegfeld (in the rafters) and Post (on a balcony), and letting us see theater as memory, dream, fantasy—all of it crashing together to make a “life” of our very first Mister Rogers.

So what if time flies backward and forward? Here’s Will the boy with his Pa (Evan Faris), then Will the radio star, then back to Will the young lover, wooing the pretty office manager Betty Blake (Meredith Browning) into joining his chaotic life. Barrus has a pleasant baritone voice and the ducked-head manner of the real Rogers; Browning’s lovely soprano is a standout in several numbers, including the torchy “No Man Left For Me” (Will spends too much time away with “his public”).

Ashley Tysor is bouncy as Ziegfeld’s Favorite, a triple-threat actor/singer/dancer; and the Follies ensemble, choregraphed by Eden Barrus, shows off designer Tina Barrus’ amazing variety of costumes. And there’s some good dancing—from slow, drifting Ziegfeld “Look at me, I’m beautiful” songs to quick-stepping jazz numbers. And the men of the “Will Rogers Wranglers” join in for some Western swing-ish tunes as well, in “Give a Man Enough Rope” and “Will-A-Mania.”

There are lots of kids/teens in the show, holding their own with the grown-up actors, and yes, a bit with a dog—or rather, several yipping puppies played by local little ones on all fours. It’s a fun show, with popcorn, cookies, and pecans (!) for sale in the lobby, and a ticket raffle at intermission. Will, the “Poet Lariat” of the American people, would feel right at home.

WHEN: Through May 6

WHERE: 305 S. Anglin Street (Dudley Hall), Cleburne

WEB: plaza-theatre.com