The Follies of 1907 is a 1907 musicalrevue which was conceived and produced byFlorenz Ziegfeld Jr. The first of two dozen theatrical revues that are collectively known as theZiegfeld Follies, the work featured material written by a variety of individuals, including music bySeymour Furth,E. Ray Goetz,Gus Edwards, Billy Gaston,Jean Schwartz,Silvio Hein, Matt Woodward andGertrude Hoffman; lyrics byVincent Bryan, Edgar Selden,Will D. Cobb, Billy Gaston,William Jerome, Matt Woodward, Martin Brown andPaul West; and comic and dramatic sketches byHarry B. Smith used in-between and around the musical numbers; Smith also served as head lyricist.Herbert Gresham staged the production, andMax Hoffman, Sr. served as the musical director.
The Follies of 1907 premiered at the Savoy Theatre inAtlantic City, New Jersey, on July 3, 1907, fortryout performances prior to its presentation onBroadway.[1] The revue premiered on Broadway at theOlympia Theatre on July 8, 1907.[2] For these performances the Olympia Theatre was renamed the Jardin de Paris, after the Parisian theatre that housed theMoulin Rouge, a reflection of theFollies pulling inspiration from the Paris stage.[citation needed] It ran until November 10, 1907, transferring to two other theatres, and playing for 79 performances.[3] The production included entertainers fromvaudeville, such as singerEmma Carus, actressesGrace La Rue andLillian Lee, actorCharley Ross, comediennesFlorence Tempest andHarry Watson Jr., dancerMademoiselle Dazie, and the troupe of chorus girls fromAnna Held's touring company, among others.[1]
The Follies of 1907 consisted of a series of independent musical, dance andcomic sketches that were connected through a loose plot in which romanticized historical figures of explorerJohn Smith andPocahontas are introduced to "modern life" in America in 1907. The opening scene featuredGrace La Rue as the Native American woman singing "My Pocahontas", which recounts the legend of her relationship with Smith. This was followed by John Smith proclaiming his love for Pocahontas in song. This opening music bySeymour Furth exemplified theexoticism of theIndianist movement by combining European styles of music with Native American ones.[4]
In subsequent sketches set in the United States, Smith and Pocohontas periodically appear as observers and commentators of the proceedings; most of them not geographically or chronologically connected to theJamestown settlement. Some of these scenes featured satirical portrayals of contemporary American figures such as PresidentTheodore Roosevelt, journalistWilliam Randolph Herst, lawyer and politicianChauncey Depew, humorist and authorMark Twain, and Christian moralist and politicianAnthony Comstock. One scene lifted musical excerpts fromGilbert and Sullivan'sTrial by Jury and featured a parody of the American justice system in which operatic tenorEnrico Caruso is put on trial for pinching a woman. In the scene, Caruso's defense counsel, played byHarry Watson Jr., isWilliam Travers Jerome, a man known at the time for prosecutingHarry Kendall Thaw whose "crime of the century" involved the murder ofStanford White, who was having an affair with his wife, the actressEvelyn Nesbit. The scene is largely a parody of the Thaw trial.[4]
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