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Review: Merrily We Roll Along
A quick review, while I think of it. Last night, we went to see Merrily We Roll Along at the Huntington. You should go see it.
This is one of Sondheim's less-known shows, adapted from a 1930s play by Kaufman and Hart. It tracks the lives and careers of a trio of friends -- in reverse. The show opens on Frank, a successful and decidedly annoying hotshot producer in the mid-70s. He is rich, famous, outwardly chipper, and hollow as a Kinder chocolate egg, having lost pretty much everything he really cared about along the road to success, including his original passion for composing music. (There is a lot of clear "there but for the grace of God" from Sondheim in Frank's story.)
From there, the story rolls backwards, year by year, asking "how did we get here?", exploring the fall and rise of Frank and his two best friends, Charley and Mary. It ends with them as idealistic 20-year-olds, sitting on a rooftop in 1957 as Sputnik passes overhead, feeling their whole lives ahead of them.
In lesser hands, the concept would have been precious, but Sondheim is a master of form and structure. (During intermission, I mused to Kate that it would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall for a conversation between him and Alan Moore.) Since the story starts at the end, there is little "what will the end be?", or even "what will happen next?" -- each scene largely post-shadows the one before. This is replaced by a host of nuances that are simply there early in the show, which gradually make more and more sense as you learn more of the history. This is a life story as hologram, only really comprehensible when you see all of it.
The music is quite good: not one of Sondheim's best, but certainly not one of his worst, either, and it has catchier bits than many. (Ironically, given that the show overtly mocks critics who demand hummable music.) The direction is excellent, and the cast brilliant -- in particular, Frank shines in a challenging role, starting as the shallow 40-year-old cad and gradually de-aging into a dorky but loveable idealist. I gather that the original run, in the early 80s, failed quickly -- in fair part because they cast it with very young actors to make the de-aging look good, and they simply didn't have the required depth yet. This time, the stars are seasoned vets, and while, yes, Frank does look a bit craggy for a 20-year-old, having experienced actors in all the major roles pays off.
And for all that you can't avoid a bit of melancholy from the story, there's nothing fatalistic about it: even Frank admits that his situation is entirely the result of his own decisions, good and bad. This is an exploration of the way that our choices -- and the way we allow ourselves to be pushed around by others -- shape our lives, and the consequences of getting what we chose.
It's fine stuff, and the theater was criminally empty even for a Tuesday (the mezz was maybe a quarter-full), so I suspect there are still tickets to be had. It's running for a couple more weeks, and is well worth seeing: check it out...
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For better or worse, it's one of the ever lengthening list of shows I can only enjoy critically, not immersively, and one of the things that is weird is I imprinted on the (in some sense) original version, via the album and performing in it twice in high school, and the current version was heavily edited from that. so watching it as an adult is always an experience in noticing all the edits and wondering why they did XYZ, and whether I think it's actually an improvement, while my gut reaction is "but they're DOING IT WRONG!" :)
I would love to get my hands on some memoir where the people involve discuss why they made those edits... Sadly. Finishing The Hat doesn't get into that at all.
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But yeah, sympathies: I'm familiar with imprinting on one's first production, and being twitchy about the differences in other ones. Evita is the worst for me: I learned it from the Broadway run, and later wound up with the album of the original West End run, and the differences drive me *nuts*. I can only imagine how much worse that would be having been in a show a couple of times. (The only shows I've been in were classics, which tend to vary less nowadays.)
I'm curious: what was the twitch with Franklin Sheppard Inc? I thought it was quite effective, but I only know the show from last night...
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Well, it's not just lyric/music edits. It's also the framing of the show and major reworking of half the dialogue scenes in the first act, plus some other bits and pieces. In particular, basically everything involving Gussie (the second-married wife) in act 1. Also, all references to the cruise.
I have some theories about what the authors might have been trying to achieve with the edits; I'm curious how close my guesses are. Also, I wish I could tell whether I think it worked.
One thing that Sondheim did say/imply in Finishing the Hat is that they tried to play up the idea that Frank is tempted into some of his bad choices by other people, as one way of making him more sympathetic. Which is all well and good except that the other people are his two wives, which, you know, the show was already pretty problematic about gender, without enhancing the effect. (Also, although very little of Beth's stuff was changed from the version I remember, somehow in this particular production, the theme of her ambition struck me in the face, whereas in other productions I've felt she came across as nice first and not so much ambitious as "hey, not living on ramen would be nice." I don't know if that was the production, or me.)
I'm curious: what was the twitch with Franklin Sheppard Inc?
Other productions I've seen (and the original cast album) have played it with Charlie going in rattled and uncomfortable about being on TV, trying to put a good face on things for the camera, and sort of accidentally getting swept up in being overly honest about his feelings and eventually getting mad/blowing up/melting down.
In this production, I felt like Charlie was pissed off from the moment they got on camera, and not trying to hide it. So the song felt much more deliberate on Charlie's part, like he'd decided "this is the last straw, now I'm going to let you have it on national TV." As a result, Frank had much more reason to feel like the wronged party, and Charlie's attempts to apologize afterwords seemed disingenuous.
That's a perfectly valid interpretation, and it does mitigate the otherwise-thickly-laid-on idea that Charlie is always in the right and long-suffering, and all the bad acting comes from Frank. So maybe the story is more interesting and nuanced that way. On the other hand, the song is *less* interesting and nuanced, because it was all on one emotional note.
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Hmm. I didn't get that from Beth, who I thought was broadly quite sympathetic. I would agree that Gussie is problematic, and was one of the few characters who I didn't really feel was three-dimensional.
Okay, I can see that. I thought it worked well, and I didn't *quite* find it so one-note: there's a steady emotional crescendo throughout, IMO. But I agree that in this version he clearly starts off angry at Frank -- indeed, it's quite clear that he's *been* angry at Frank for quite some time -- and is gradually losing his remaining self-control about it, rather than it being that sublimated at the start...
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Interesting; that implies that my reaction to Beth was more about me than about the show, which is not necessarily surprising. My strongest memories of the show are from when I was 16-17, and though I have seen it as an adult at least once, it would have been 10 if not 20 years ago...
As for Gussie, she's way more 3D in this version than in the original, where she is pretty much a plot device and doesn't get anywhere near as much stage time. And that's the text, not just me. :)
I agree that in this version he clearly starts off angry at Frank -- indeed, it's quite clear that he's *been* angry at Frank for quite some time -- and is gradually losing his remaining self-control about it, rather than it being that sublimated at the start...
Yeah. And I do think that angrier-Charlie made for a slightly more 3D version of Charlie&Frank's relationship/storyline. So there's that.
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I had very much that experience seeing someone else's production of The Knight of the Burning Pestle.
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