 Terry Teachout of the "Wall Street Journal" noted that "One of the signal achievements of this "Follies" is that it succeeds in untangling each and every strand of the show's knotty plot... Mr. Schaeffer is clearly unafraid of the darkness of "Follies", so much so that the first act is bitter enough to sting.Yet he and Warren Carlyle ... just as clearly revel in the richness of the knowing pastiche songs with which Mr. Sondheim evokes the popular music of the prerock era.