Olivier Winner Philip Quast on Why Follies Is His Last Musical, the Road Not Taken & More

The clarion-voiced Philip Quast has three Olivier Awards to his name and is bound to be considered for a fourth in due course for his soul-stirring performance as Ben Stone in the National Theatre’s sell-out revival of the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical Follies, which will be screened in cinemas via NT Live on November 16. Broadway.com spoke to the hugely amiable and gifted Australian within days of the show’s triumphant opening at the Olivier auditorium.

What was it about this production that made you leave your home in Australia and hop continents to play Ben Stone opposite Janie Dee and Imelda Staunton as Phyllis and Sally?
It came along and seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. I’ve reached an age where a lot of parts are just not around, or the style of singing doesn’t suit my voice. So when this came up, the fact that it was Sondheim and also the right age made me feel as if I had to give it a go.

Did you have an initial sense of the other people who would be involved?
Imelda [Staunton] had already been cast as Sally, so that of course was attractive, and the fact of it being Sondheim at the National Theatre and directed by Dominic [Cooke]. I sort of thought I had to jump at it. Also, Ben is of the ilk of parts that I like—tormented and that deal with depression, which is sort of me, really [laughs].

Did it make a difference that you had played Ben in London in a 2007 concert performance with Maria Friedman as Sally and, interestingly, Imelda Staunton doing “Broadway Baby”?
Yeah, and I also did [Follies] in concert last year in Melbourne, so I’ve done the show twice. Doing a concert version bears no resemblance to what we’re doing here. I started off thinking I knew a thing about it, but, of course, I didn’t know anything. In concert, Ben can come off as petulant because of his self-pity, but you don’t get the exposition about the characters’ past lives: you miss the snippets of dialogue that allow it all to build up.

What else about tackling this part in a full production surprised you?
In a concert version, you don’t get the element of alcohol, which is very, very important, and the way [booze] acts as a lubricant to help loosen up the past.

Is it a challenging sing for you?
It’s not hugely difficult for me, to be honest: I mean, I would be scared at this point in my career of doing Sweeney—that one has passed me by. There’s an element of laziness in this of not carrying the burden, and I suspect that appeals to all of us. I’m sure Imelda feels relief at not having to drive [Follies] the way she had to do [as Rose] in Gypsy. We’re working as a community here; we carry the show as a group.

Do you feel an affinity with Ben?
When I auditioned for Dominic [Cooke, the director], I said to him, “I understand this role”—not the philandering part—but I certainly understand the self-loathing and the way in which all of us at some point tell ourselves lies. I think the genius of what Dominic has done with the piece is to give it that little bit more. He’s set [party host] Dmitri Weismann up as the reason they’re all there; they’ve all come back on this one night for him.

What is it like during Ben’s climactic “folly” having to break down onstage?
It’s a terrible feeling is all I can tell you! It’s awful to have to dry like that: it’s your worst nightmare, but that’s what his folly is—a nightmare. He has to take responsibility and finally admit to the audience that it’s all a lie and it’s all bullshit. The only way he can come out of it at that point is to call for Phyllis because she’s all he has.

How, therefore, do you view the ending, where—after everything that’s happened—Ben and Phyllis depart the party together?
I think it has a lot of hope at the end. When Phyllis says, “let’s go home,” she’s making an actual offer. Sally might end up in a funny farm or kill herself, but I think Phyllis and Ben will go home and work. It’s like in Voltaire: we have to grow our garden and build our house and bake our bread, but there has to be an element of hope.

How does the show feel on the Olivier stage, which is a thrust as opposed to the more customary proscenium arch?
That’s what works well about the Olivier—that the show wraps around us. If we were in a proscenium, it would be as if we were framed, but there’s something about the Olivier where you are so exposed and by the time the walls disappear it’s as if we are into a form of impressionism and expressionism at the same time.

Should we take it seriously when you say that this may be your last musical?
I’d say so. I mean, what else is there to do? I’m happy even at 60 that I can still sing the way I do, but I’m not young anymore and my voice has got lower and I don’t want to put myself through all that angst.

Meaning what?
When you see the toll Gypsy took on Imelda, doing that role for eight months eight times a week, or Julia McKenzie, who reached a stage where she said it just became too much. You don’t want to reach a stage where you go, “Oops, I’m too old for this part, but I’m going to do it anyway.” I reckon if I had done Sweeney the way I wanted to do it, it would have torn my voice apart.

As with Ben, who famously sings of the road he didn’t take, do you ever think of the different sort of career you might have had—in the U.S., for instance?
At one stage I went to New York with the idea of giving it a go and I met agents who were basically all over me, but then I came home and I never heard a thing. What is required of America is that you have to be there. If I had wanted to go there, I would have had to really commit when the fact is I’m Australian and I’ve got a family. Musicals often are a single person’s life but it’s different when you’ve got kids and are in a longterm relationship and are entirely happy teaching and fishing, as I am.

Were movies ever an attractive option?
I could have gone to Hollywood years ago but I didn’t get my teeth fixed and I didn’t go. I’m still married: I’ve seen so many friends go and their marriages end because they enter a world and it’s not real.

So, after this ends January 3, you’re off back home?
I suspect so, yes, and that I’ll want to be home to my fishing boat. In the meantime, I’m with this group of people and, blimey, it’s unbelievable!