Last winter’s production of Merrily We Roll Along, which was a rapid-fire sold-out hit when presented downtown at New York Theatre Workshop, has now taken over the historic Hudson on West 44th. The show plays even better in this traditional, three-level playbox. In fact, this first Broadway revival of the 1981 Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical might be the finest Broadway revival of any Sondheim musical thus far (and I’ve seen ’em all, since Richard Rodgers revived West Side Story in 1968). Certainly, it would win in the “most improved” category. This production makes Merrily, finally, look like a top-drawer musical with no apologies necessary.
The production is substantially the same as it was downtown, the cast intact save for the two lads alternating in the role of Franklin Shepard’s son. Headlining the enterprise, in what is clearly not the central role, is Daniel Radcliffe. The onetime Harry Potter has been trodding the boards frequently since when?—Equus, in 2007?—with a good deal of success both in the artistic and ticket-selling realms. With age (he’s now 34), he has developed into a top-level character man. To watch him “bzzz” and “drrrrring” and “mutter mutter mutter” his way through that musical comedy workout Sondheim called “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” is to watch an expert at work. Radcliffe slays the house, of course; you can only wonder how many of his legion of fans, having eagerly scooped up hard-to-find tickets, will sit there thinking: “Oh, now I understand why they say nothing compares to a real, live Broadway musical!” Or something of the sort.
Lindsay Mendez—as Mary, the leading lady who will never, ever get her man—also remains better-than-wonderful in the role. “Not a Day Goes By,” she sings, watching her “Old Friend” Franklin look through her in search of that elusive something he is fated to never, ever find. Behind Mendez’s wide smile is a wall of pain. The character, the material, and in this case the performer make your heart just want to break.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★★ review here.]
If Mendez and Radcliffe were already perfect downtown—or perhaps even on the first day in the rehearsal room—Jonathan Groff’s Franklin Shepard has taken a different path. To say the role is difficult is an understatement; like Robert (a.k.a. Bobby baby) in the Sondheim-Furth Company, Franklin is trapped. He stands in the precise center of a crowd that his character dominates, unable to break through his walled-off personality to relate to anyone, imploring somebody—anybody—to “make me aware of being alive.” Groff brought an intriguing element to his performance last winter, not shying away from displaying a Franklin who was cold, cruel, and unlikable. He has now found a way to add a core of desperate sadness and a sense of loss, which makes him the most effective Franklin of the half-dozen I’ve seen.
As before, Reg Rogers offers clutch support as producer Joe Josephson, bringing measures of comedy and pathos to the proceedings. He is one of those actors who can speak volumes by simply standing silent, slumped on the side of the stage. Katie Rose Clarke comes in relatively late in the reverse-chronologic proceedings as Franklin’s first wife, Beth. Faced with that late entrance, the already-established competitive excellence of Mendez and Radcliffe, and the not-easy chore of launching almost immediately into a brief and brutal divorce scene capped by an exquisite Sondheim ballad without the opportunity of establishing her character, Clarke manages to quickly hold her own. The other major player, Krystal Joy Brown as Gussie, is saddled with the one role that the authors—struggling to fix the show through numerous rewrites—never quite solved. Brown does manage to break through, especially in the later scenes (which are, in the writing, actually the earlier scenes). Her performance is on a level with the others, even if her material is not.
Maria Friedman—a prime Sondheim interpreter who starred in West End productions of Sunday in the Park with George, Merrily We Roll Along, and Passion—initially directed this production in 2012 at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. Friedman’s producer-sister Sonia, along with David Balbani of the Menier, moved it to the West End the following year, and they lead the team that a decade later brought it—with a new, American cast—to NYTW and now Broadway. Choreographer Tim Jackson and scenic/costume designer Soutra Gilmour remain on hand, joined by lighting designer Amith Chandrashaker, sound designer Kai Harada, and hair/wig designer Cookie Jordan. All make key contributions to the whole.
The music, meanwhile, sounds even better at the Hudson, by virtue of the addition of a string quartet supplementing the group. (The designer places the band in a windowed upper area of the set; we see them play the overture and the curtain calls, but they otherwise disappear behind blackout blinds.) The 13-piece orchestra—half the players held over from NYTW—is now led by Joel Fram, who performed the same chore on the 2021 Company. If today’s Broadway musicals must have drastically cut-down orchestras, it is all-the-more-critical that the surgeon in question understands the score and the music. It is an understatement to say that Jonathan Tunick knows how to orchestrate a Sondheim musical; but he also knows how to cut his existing work in half without losing the orchestral colors and flavors of the original (except for that virtuosic tuba part included in the 1981 version).
All told, it’s a hit, to borrow a title phrase from one of Sondheim most artful “concerted” numbers; a palpable hit, to borrow a phrase the Master borrowed from the Bard. Forget about the troubled history of Sondheim and Hal Prince’s most ignominious miscue; here and now, Merrily is a five-star hit, and no doubt about it. The show plays like wildfire, ignited from that first blast of overture from that band. It’s a win-win, or perhaps a win-win-win-win. A win for Merrily, yes; a win for Radcliffe, Mendez, and Groff; and a win mostly for Maria Friedman, who created this production with significant success back in 2012 and—in three or four steps along the way—has continued to add layers of sheen so that it no longer plays like an excellent production of a troubled musical but an excellent show all around. It’s a win for Furth, too, who is often overlooked for his script to Merrily (and Company as well) but whose contributions the composer always insistently cited.
Mostly it’s a win for Sondheim, who at this point in time has encountered so many such wins that if he were here, he would likely nod in sincere appreciation as he rushed in from London (where his newest revue, Old Friends, opened last week at the Gielgud) and bolted downtown (where his newest musical, Here We Are, opens next week at the Shed). All of which is well and good; but here and now we are at the Hudson, and Merrily We Roll Along is finally and inarguably revealed to be a wonderfully thrilling Broadway hit.
Merrily We Roll Along opened October 10, 2023, at the Hudson Theatre and runs through March 24, 2024. Tickets and information: merrilyonbroadway.com
