Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along is back in town, now onstage at New York Theatre Workshop. This is, by my count, the 10th high-profile U.S./U.K. production of the musical since it first appeared—in underbaked form, without benefit of tryout or workshop—in 1981. Borrowing a phrase from that erstwhile professor Henry Higgins, I think we can finally say “By George, they’ve got it!” Or, rather, “By Steve, they’ve got it!”
“They” being director Maria Friedman and the late Sondheim, who initially fashioned this production at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory in 2012. After a transfer to the West End, the show was beamed for a one-night-only broadcast to hundreds of cinemas. It has also been remounted on occasion, including a 2017 stint at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company. Sondheim and Friedman were close friends and altogether “old friends,” as in the song of that title, since 1990; Friedman originated the roles of Dot, Mary Flynn, and Fosca in the original British productions of Sunday in the Park with George, Merrily We Roll Along, and Passion.
The distressing history of the final major Stephen Sondheim/Harold Prince musical, beginning with that tortured two-week Broadway, needn’t be recounted here. It is enough to say that Friedman found a way to make the material, finally, work: focusing on the characters and the songs above all, staged on a relatively simplistic set (designed by Soutra Gilmour) which never distracts from the heart of the matter.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★★ review here.]
As the Master, who was famously non-effusive about his musicals, himself said on the occasion of the 2013 cinema release: “This production of Merrily We Roll Along is not only the best I’ve seen but one of those rare instances where casting, direction and show come together in perfect combination, resulting in the classic ideal of the sum being greater than the parts.” Let me add, nine years later (although it seems like 20), that Friedman’s present mounting is even stronger.
This, in part, because of the concentration by this ‘actor’s director’ on the central players. Franklin Shepard, the anti-hero of the show’s triumvirate, is here played by Jonathan Groff (from Spring Awakening, in 2006, and more recently that mad King George in Hamilton). Frank is a study of success gone sour, with the idealistic young man turned soulless celebrity over the course of the action. In reverse, as it happens, as Merrily was conceived to roll along backwards, present-to-past.
Part of what sets this production off so powerfully is that Friedman and Groff are not afraid to present Frank as cold, cruel, and decidedly unlikable. That is in the writing, yes, but prior productions have tended to keep him more sympathetic than not. Groff is not afraid to be downright insufferable. It turns out that this jump-starts the action, in an odd way instantly matching the angry energy of the bravura overture which starts the evening. It is not until the trio “Old Friends,” when Groff throws in a bit of a goofy shuffle step, that we start to see what attracted the others to Frank in the first place.
Lindsay Mendez is equally gripping as Mary, the self-described “fat, drunk, and finished” friend who serves as the conscience (or lack thereof) from which Frank can’t ever escape. The role most always stands out in performance, likely because it is so finely written. Even so, Mendez—who came to attention in 2012 with a stunning performance in the Pasek-Paul Dogfight, and earned a recent Tony as Carrie Pipperidge in Carousel—is always exceptional, at least in this playgoer’s experience. Here, she is winning, knowing, and searing; and a knockout of a dramatic singer as well.
The acting surprise of the evening is Daniel Radcliffe, as lyricist/playwright Charley Kringas. An instant celebrity-star at 11 by virtue of his appearance as Harry Potter in the film series of that name, Radcliffe has been energetically and conscientiously trodding the boards since Equus in 2007. In Merrily, though, we don’t see a talented star performing “live in person,” as they say; we see a smart, and moving, performance. He makes a worthy counterpart to Groff, a fine partner to Mendez, and is altogether joyful. (Watch closely for the moment in “It’s a Hit!” when the diminutive Radcliffe makes an exuberant leap like a Texas cheerleader.)
Reg Rogers offers a typically expert comic performance, mixing in welcome empathy as the cuckolded producer; Katie Rose Clark does well as Frank’s first wife, Beth, with a nice reading of “Not a Day Goes By” and energetic contributions to the “Opening Doors” sequence; and the ensemble does well throughout. Krystal Joy Brown makes as much as she can out of the villainess Gussie. This role, which was expanded and somewhat reconceived following the show’s initial failure, has always come across to me as something of an unconvincing band-aid. The post-1981 Gussie more or less serves her purpose, but the writing is not up to the expected Sondheim caliber.
Alvin Hough Jr. leads a swinging band in Jonathan Tunick’s nine-piece orchestration. (Tunick reduced his original charts for Friedman’s 2012 production.) No, they can’t match the full, big band orchestration captured forever on the excellent 1981 original cast album. But they carefully capture the highs and lows of the original, and music—from the band, glimpsable through the balcony windows of the unit set—fills the theatre. In a day when hit Broadway musicals like Hadestown make due with only seven musicians, it is churlish to argue against nine when they sound so ultra musical.
I ended my review of Friedman’s 2012 version by calling it “as fine a rendition of Merrily as you’ve likely seen.” What we have now is even finer. I needn’t and won’t suggest you storm the NYTW box office, as this engagement seems to have sold out within hours of going on sale. But unless I miss my guess, word of a Broadway transfer will wend our way before not much more than a day goes by, quicker’n you can say “it only gets better and stronger and deeper and nearer and simpler and freer and richer and clearer.”
Merrily We Roll Along opened December 11, 2022, at New York Theatre Workshop and runs through January 21, 2023. Tickets and information: nytw.org
