 Joanne Gordon, author and Chair and Artistic Director, Theatre, at California State University, Long Beach, wrote ""Follies" is in part an affectionate look at the American musical theater between the two World Wars and provides Sondheim with an opportunity to use the traditional conventions of the genre to reveal the hollowness and falsity of his characters' dreams and illusions.The emotional high generated by the reunion of the Follies girls ultimately gives way to anger, disappointment, and a weary resignation to reality.