By the time I arrived in New York, theatrical legends such as Laurette Taylor, Alfred Drake, and Kim Stanley were long gone. Julie Harris still had a formidable “Glass Menagerie” left in her, but Jason Robards and Uta Hagen could be seen only in sadly diminished capacities.

I can console myself, however, in the knowledge that I have been around to witness Victoria Clark at the peak of her craft. I look forward to one day boring my grandchildren with this fact.

Ms. Clark, one of many reasons to cherish the triumphant staging of “Follies,” which concludes tonight at City Center, spent several fruitful years as a nimble comic actress before taking a quantum leap forward in 2005 with her incandescent performance in “The Light in the Piazza.” In her first major New York role since then, this tremendously resourceful actress has picked right up where she left off. She and Donna Murphy (another Tony-winning actress with remarkable range) are both riveting as Sally and Phyllis, half of the discontented foursome at the center of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s remorseless 1971 musical.

“One’s life consists of either/or,” sings Ben, Phyllis’s successful husband and the object of Sally’s adoration, and “Follies” shows with unflinching precision how easy it is to second-guess the choices that pop up along the way. (Victor Garber gives an intelligent, powerfully sung interpretation of Ben; the excellent Michael McGrath rounds out the quartet as Sally’s philandering husband, Buddy.) Mr. Sondheim and Goldman used a reunion of showgirls from a “Ziegfeld Follies”-esque extravaganza as the springboard for a complex, haunting look at faded glamour and scorched hopes, punctuated with the ghostly presence of the same characters circa 1941.

Director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw did a terrific job mixing the fondly remembered past and the begrudgingly acknowledged present last year in “The Drowsy Chaperone,” and he works similar wonders here. The complex interweavings between the characters in their 1941 and 1971 incarnations are difficult under any circumstances, let alone within the prohibitively tight Encores! rehearsal schedules.

“Follies” inspires a near-maniacal level of devotion from musical-theater buffs, largely for two reasons: the phantasmagorical “Loveland” climax, in which the four leads give surreal voice to their regret and ambivalence through marvelous pastiche songs; and the chance to see nearly a dozen faded legends once again strut their stuff. (The affection typically does not extend to Mr. Goldman’s book, a litany of barbed ripostes that comes off better than usual in Mr. Nicholaw’s hands.)

In addition to wisely substituting insight for spectacle in “Loveland,” the no-frills Encores! has rounded up a blue-chip roster of old-timers. They all acquit themselves with grace and undimmed flair, and a handful — Mimi Hines with her roof-raising take on “Broadway Baby,” a raucous JoAnne Worley — do more than that. Christine Baranski may not have the years on her odometer (or the vocal chops) for “I’m Still Here,” Mr. Sondheim’s laundry list of a showbiz lifer’s ups and downs, but she punches it up with her usual dagger-sharp wit.

(A side note: Given the adoration that it engenders and the fact that it has received several prominent mountings both in New York and regionally, “Follies” has absolutely no place in a concert series designed to honor unappreciated musicals.)

Mr. Nicholaw’s staging of the “Loveland” sequence, triggered by a beautifully staged confrontation among the foursome and their younger doppelgängers, is a knockout. He has emphasized an awareness of the contradictory emotions in all four characters’ songs, and at least three of the four unearth every layer of pathos. (Only Mr. McGrath’s vaudeville turn, performed at a laggardly tempo, underwhelms.) Ms. Murphy adds a welcome level of brass-band sensuality to her deep repertoire, Mr. Garber self-destructs memorably, and Ms. Clark complements her radiant soprano from earlier songs with the scouring torch song “Losing My Mind.”

Did I mention that, in addition to the awe-inspiring vocal range she displays in “Follies,” Ms. Clark also does a mean tap-dance combination? Or that she gets a handful of laughs in what is by far the least glib of the lead roles? This is consummate acting by a consummate performer. In a show rife with poignant ironies, perhaps the most tantalizing in this production is that Ms. Clark’s first song is titled “Don’t Look at Me” — and is sung by the one musical-theater performer of our generation who most deserves, who demands, to be watched.

Until February 12 (West 55th Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-581-1212).