I often bounce around between what I consider to be my favorite Sondheim musical...and a lot of that has to do with the simple fact that the man was basically a God who gave us such a stellar and eclectic output.
I am not about to make a claim that his best musical is Merrily We Roll Along, but I will say that there is a certain bouncy buoyancy to it mixed with bittersweetness and snark that make it a truly unique little quirky gem of a piece.
There is a song in the show called "It's a Hit!" where our leading characters Frankin Shepard and Charley Kringas both realize their new show Musical Husbands is a smash after a rapturous opening night.
As any musical theatre fan can tell you, that certainly wasn't the case for Merrily We Roll Along.
Just a quick history:
The musical was actually inspired by a 1934 Kaufmann & Hart play of the same name which explored a playwright named Richard Niles with a reverse chronological storytelling method that began in the 30s and ended with his college graduation in 1916.
Spanning 20 years of time in a theatrical production is not necessarily unheard of...although the revere chronology may be a little more so.
One big question one might have if you are on a production team for such a show is how to go about casting it: do you want to keep the cast young or older or somewhere in the middle?
When Stephen Sondheim, Book writer George Furth, and director Hal Prince began devising the piece, the decision was made that this would be a showcase for young talent. Prince eventually said in an interview that he was "charmed as hell" by the "beginnings of the cast's artistry, the roughness of their craft, their inexperience".
On top of this, it was decided that the show would not have an out-of-town tryout due to budgetary reasons and it would open sometime in November of 1981 in the midst of what was considered one of the worst Broadway seasons in recent memory when it came to original musicals.
*Sidenote: this is the season Dreamgirls would open to truly orgasmic reviews that December only for another musical, Nine, to come in late in the game in May 1982 to win the Tony mainly due to politics and recency bias while also not having an out-of-town tryout.*
The preview period for Merrily is legendary for how disastrous it actually was. The first performance had mass walkouts and many bemoaned how incoherent the story/characters were. It seems like a joke now, but one of the big decisions made for a period was for the cast members to wear various colored sweatshirts that had their characters' names emblazoned on their chest.
After 44 previews (which may not seem like a lot in today's Broadway climate) and the firing of young James Weissenbach as Franklin at the expense of Jim Walton, the show finally opened on November 16, 1981...and closed two weeks later after only 16 official performances.
Despite the colossal failure, they were able to record the score for posterity which is certainly a major reason why the show didn't just fade into obscurity.
That cast recording truly is the saving grace because it captured the best things about the production: the score and the Jonathan Tunick orchestrations.
Considering musicals are what they are, a great score can often help a show coast along even if it has just an adequate text to buoy it up. A lot of what made Merrily problematic was Furth's book and Prince's desire to focus on the cast being young adults. However, it is clear when looking at the material that while it was far from being great, the themes involving the dissolution a friendship told backwards gave the show a surprising emotional trajectory.
It is that old trope of letting an audience in on something that the actors don't know. By the end of the show when we see the trio of Franklin, Charley, and Mary sitting on the roof of their Upper West Side apartment having spotted Sputnik in the sky, we can't help but feel a sense of warmth for them along with a sense of sadness as we know this budding friendship is not going to last.
After years of many revisions and edits to the plot and score, Merrily built up a bigger reputation and managed to become a truly beloved cult favorite. This culminated in a 2012 production that was staged by Maria Friedman at London's Menier Chocolate Factory. It was THAT production that got many buzzing to that point that such hyperbolic sayings like "This is the definitive Merrily" were being proclaimed with great fervor.
After a decade (and a pandemic), it was announced that the Friedman staging would be coming to Broadway starring very popular Broadway vets Jonathan Groff as Franklin; Daniel Radcliffe as Charley; and Lindsay Mendez as Mary. This seemed like a no-brainer after it had been staged with great success at the NY Theatre Workshop.
And here it was, over 40 years after the musical bombed, it was now time for it to have its official coronation on Broadway...and it was indeed a coronation that gave the show Tonys for Best Musical Revival, Best Leading Actor for Groff, Best Featured Actor for Radcliffe, and Orchestrations for Tunick, who revamped his work for a smaller (but fantastic) orchestra.
For a quick synopsis of the show, we begin in 1976. We are in the Bel Air home of Franklin Shepard (Jonathan Groff), who is now working as a successful Hollywood film producer, and we quickly learn that he has had a falling out with his two friends: Mary Flynn (Lindsay Mendez), a journalist turned novelist turned critic and his writing partner Charley Kringas (Daniel Radcliffe), who is now a highly acclaimed playwright with a Pulitzer Prize to his name.
We proceed back throughout the 20 years that led to this moment; all of the triumphs and heartbreaks and discoveries and betrayals.
I already that I called the musical a "quirky little piece", but beyond that...how exactly do I feel about it?
Like I also said, I by no means consider this to be Sondheim's best musical but I used to always consider it his most underrated...and that mainly comes from his score rather than the rest of the show itself.
Sondheim's style is usually pretty noticeable as he loves to experiment and not cater to the norms, but one thing that is truly remarkable about him is that his catalog is quite eclectic...and it is that quality that can make it hard to choose a favorite musical of his...or at least a favorite score.
Merrily is a jazzier score that almost feels surprisingly traditional at times, but the real truth is that this score is deceptively brilliant. It ties in so many key musical motifs throughout the show that vary depending on the era they came from. We may hear a snippet of a song that would normally be a reprise (Old Friends) and then hear the full song later on...but he also experiments with song styles.
We get a patter-like nervous breakdown with "Franklin Shepard Inc.", bitter love ballads that originally started as proclamations of young love such as "Not a Day Goes By", and a silly cutesy off-Broadway revue song about the Kennedy family tree that feels like it could've come out of an Irish revamping of Jacques Brel is Alive & Well & Living in Paris.
While maybe not as grand as the score he wrote right before it (Sweeney Todd), there is a certain whimsy and flash to Merrily that makes it feel like his take on a truly classic Broadway musical.
Even with the show flopping, Sondheim still managed to get a Best Score nomination, which he lost to Maury Yeston for Nine. That is one of those scores where I marvel more at Yeston's musicality than his lyrics...something he would improve upon years later with his work on projects like Titanic and December Songs.
At any rate...I shouldn't go down a tangent about Nine. I should save that for another time.
Back to Merrily!!
I think when the show works well, it works remarkably well. Considering the timeline and the structure of the scenes and the characters weaving in and out, it can be hard to keep track at times of who is who and their exact role...however, there is certainly more distinct work done with the characterizations that make it easier to follow without having to resort to branded sweatshirts.
This is clearly a show that needs strong acting and direction to pull it through, and I would say that Maria Friedman achieved that here. Considering the limitations of the Furth text at times, it is up to the actors/director to dig as deep into the material to find the emotional core.
The reason a lot of productions suffered...especially ones I had either seen or been involved with...were due to the fact that it was hard to be that invested in many of the side characters like Gussie, Beth, and Joe.
Gussie starts off the show as being Frank's wife. She is a successful actress and had been in the Shepard/Kringas Broadway debut Musical Husbands...and at that time, she had been married to the musical's producer Joe. Frank's affair with Gussie led to the dissolution of his marriage to Beth, who proceeded to take their young son back to Houston after a bitter court battle. Beth had gotten her start by being cast in a small revue put up by Frank and Charley down in 1960 Greenwich Village.
These three characters prove to be where the issues can lie. Gussie can come off strictly as a narcissistic diva; Joe is just an irascible stereotypical New Yorker; and Beth is the ingenue turned scorned wife.
This production cast Krystal Joy Brown, Reg Rogers, and Katie Rose Clarke in these respective roles, but if I had to pick who really stood out, it was Clarke...which is totally a shocker.
Beth has always been something of a thankless role, which managed to get a boost when Sondheim famously revised the song "Not a Day Goes By" to be sung by her in Act 1 instead of Frank. Beth becomes more a fixture once we hit Act 2 as she plays a bigger role in the earlier years of Frank's growing career. It is during these scenes where you see such a perky warm personality coming off of Clarke that makes looking back at her courtroom scene in Act 1 all the more brutal.
I have always found Clarke to be an undervalued stage actress who is often the best thing about weaker material. Look no further than her turn as Hannah in the truly abysmal 2015 musical Allegiance in which she was a true highlight...aside from a horrifically staged moment in which her character (spoiler alert) gets shot.
Over the last several months, we have been seeing Groff, Radcliffe, and Mendez in tandem. So much so that Lindsay Mendez got married on the usual Monday off and had both Groff and Radcliffe involved in the ceremony.
Groff referred to them now being "soulmates" during his Tony acceptance speech, and you can feel that love amongst them...and it was especially apparent onstage. Even in the heated moments, you could tell that this was a trio of actors who trusted each other wholeheartedly. A lot of the power of this production undoubtedly rests on their shoulders and they truly carry the day.
I have never been the biggest fan of Lindsay Mendez if I am truly being honest, but she absolutely nailed the snide cynicism of Mary. She is always the third wheel; the Eponine to Beth or Gussie's Cosette. She's always there with a quip that is dripping with copious amounts of sarcasm, but there is such unfulfilled sadness underneath considering that she has an unrequited love for Frank that leads to her becoming an alcoholic.
This was a true star turn for Mendez, easily her best work as you could see every layer of pain under her snarky bravado.
Then we come to Radcliffe as Charley Kringas, a role that I always considered one of my favorites in the Sondheim canon...and one that I was lucky to be able to play at one point and it was still one of my proudest achievements.
Charley is the meeker and more awkward of the two. He wants to write, he wants to engage people in deeper topics when coming to the theatre...and yet, he has to deal with a best friend/writing partner who is really loving the money and the success. There could be a certain danger to having Charley come off as a wet blanket/kill joy, but I would argue he is mainly just the smartest guy in the room who needs to speak up more.
Radcliffe gives Charley such a sweetness that you almost want to run up onstage and tussle his hair and tell him everything will be okay. Considering that he is attached to a role that will undoubtedly follow him to his grave and beyond, you really have to commend a lot of the roles that Radcliffe has taken on in the last nearly 15 years as the Harry Potter franchise finally came to a close. When Deathly Hallows Part II was released in theaters in the summer of 2011, he wasn't off shooting some new hip movie that he could start promoting. Instead, he came to Broadway start in a revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying...which was his second Broadway outing after making a big splash with Equus in 2008.
Radcliffe was given a chance to prove himself as an actor thanks to Broadway. This performance felt like the perfect time to give him due credit for being more than just a kid wizard...and he also approached the role as he should have: an actor. His singing is definitely good, but he is still not the kind of singer that Groff is...and Charley is not supposed to be a singer. After years of more polished Charley types played by the likes of Lin Manuel Miranda, Wayne Brady, and Raul Esparza, it was nice to see Radcliffe take on the scruffier aesthetic that seemed more in line with the originator of the role: Lonny Price.
And that brings me to Jonathan Groff, quite possibly one of the most beloved and charming figures to come out of the Broadway theatre scene in years.
There's a certain stroke of genius to casting someone so fun and charming in a role where they also need to be something of a cad. Think of Steve Carell's casting on The Morning Show: a truly impeachable and beloved figure that is outed as a sexual predator...and yet, you still can't help but love watching him because the actor involved brings such humanity to the part.
Groff's Franklin is no less a cad, but he makes the most of a character that is quite easily the most boring of the trio. A prime example of a trope where the more supporting players are interesting than the lead...but this is where Groff's charisma can truly push through that barrier.
There is a moment during the "It's a Hit!" song I mentioned earlier where Beth sings to Frank that he is on track to win a Tony. In this moment, the audience erupted in an ovation that lasted for well over a minute considering Groff's Tony win just occurred 6 days ago. It stopped the show cold, and you could see Mendez and Radcliffe breaking character to enjoy the moment with Groff. Normally these kinds of moments can get old, but it honestly felt wonderful to witness as Groff has been such a down-to-earth and loving champion of Broadway and its community of fans.
Oh! And I got to see a big splash of Groff Sauce (his spit for those who aren't aware) during "Old Friends" so that was also fun...lol...
MY FINAL THOUGHTS:
I originally sat down and planned for this to be a review of the production, but then I felt compelled to throw in some of the history to go along with it. The truth is that it is hard to talk about Merrily We Roll Along without commenting on its truly bizarre history as a legendary flop that basically destroyed the royal-like partnership of Sondheim & Prince that dominated the 70s Broadway scene.
I also find myself sort of in a rambling mood a little bit. I have never really seen this show be done to the potential that I saw it done today, and I feel that has me at a loss for words.
I think, perhaps, we could still mine a little more characterization out of the supporting players...but I do agree that the text there will always be a bit of a limitation.
Even with that limitation, there was always an emotionally charged show here. It is prime example of how you truly need the right people to be able to see the potential and bring it out with great care.
I wish there was a way it could live on past the July 7th closing date so more people could see it, but it was announced that it is being filmed for posterity and I suppose it is likely we will either see it air on Great Performances or in cinemas across the country.
If you get the chance, please watch it.
So yes, Sondheim, your show is finally a hit...a very palpable hit.
And yes, that sound you hear is the audience losing its mind.
