photo by Joan Marcus
Celia Keenan-Bolger,Colin Donnell & Lin-Manuel Miranda in "Merrily We Roll Along"
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Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along,” now playing as part of the City Center Encores! series, first appeared in 1981 and locates the tongue firmly in cheek. When we meet the gleesome threesome of Frank, Charley and Mary for the first time, they have actually been friends for a lifetime–having met when they were all about 20—and it is now 20 years later, and those years have not been entirely kind to them. But we only know we are seeing them at a celebration where Franklin Shepard (Colin Donnell) is the cause célèbre on the occasion of fêting his successful, if formulaic movie, and his good friend Mary Flynn (Celia Keenan-Bolger) is four sheets to the wind and bent on saying the sooth in the most fundamental way. In a nutshell, Frank can do more and be more and he has sold out to money and influence, a grave disappointment in a 40 year old. Frank is searching for that most elusive bird–happiness. Their third, Charley Kringas (Lin-Manuel Miranda), is present in his absence almost as the Ghost of Friendship Past.
Frank is surrounded by a fawning coterie that is fabulous for his ego. His second wife, Gussie (Elizabeth Stanley), is a successful musical theatre actress, who knows she is losing her man to the starlet on his arm, his latest discovery. Considering how they came to be married, it may seem that turnabout is only fair play, though we don’t know that yet–and thus our play begins, unhappily. Oddly enough the End, which is the Beginning, is very happy. Here’s how it spins out.
Backwards rolls time in this play of “how it all came to be” and has a talented ensemble, who owe much to Shakespeare and Sophocles, including comedy woven into tragedy, as each becomes one of the pantheon of people who surround these three friends. Shakespeare had his problem plays, and so, too, does Sondheim. Fifty-two previews and only 19 performances marked the first go-round for “Merrily” and it could be that the world in 1981 was not as cynical as it is today. That world may not have been ready for the one that we know, post-stock market crashes of 1987 and 2002 to the recession of 2008. This show has seen more success in revivals as a full show, but songs like “Not a Day Goes By,” first sung by Betsy Wolfe as Beth, Frank’s first wife on the brink of their divorce, has had legs in popular music and cabarets since its introduction.
Frank is the lodestone, the handsome, charming, and driven-to-success fulcrum of the trio. Mary is a critic by the time we meet her, but has had a successful novel published. Charley Kringas, as played by Miranda–the composer/star of “In the Heights”—has a bravura performance in “Franklin Shepard, Inc.,” when he lives out the fantasy we all wish we could–ripping into a disappointing friend on national television and loving every moment of it. Frank is predictably devastated, but when you lance a boil, you must be prepared for the fallout of too few conversations about the things that matter most. Our most loving friends are the ones who may feel the most bitterly disappointed.
There are many poignant and beautiful moments in this production, especially in the chemistry amongst Frank, Mary and Charley. Wolfe wrings every shred of lost love and bittersweet recollection from “Not A Day Goes By,” and when Keenan-Bolger’s Mary joins her in the reprise, the echo is thrilling as it pierces your heart. Sondheim is a master at showing us the femme fatale and as we see, Stanley’s Gussie is made, not born. The Act Two Opening is all flash and sex with Gussie in a dress that is just the right shade for Valentine’s Day and her strawberry blonde ’do. Surrounding her by handsome dancing boys, it’s clear that nobody writes the Good Time Girl like him. Stanley vamps and treads the razor’s edge, and seemed quite close to a wardrobe malfunction–vah-vah-VOOM! Yet all remained where it was supposed to be, even when her boys carried her from the room.
One of the great joys of Encores! lies in seeing actors from many different theatres treading the boards in New York. Mylinda Hull was just in the world premiere musical “It Shoulda Been You” at the George Street Playhouse and it was great to see her on a New York stage. The orchestra was above a screen that projected various images of our principals with various show biz figures of the time as well as “old” pictures of them in their youth. On the whole, the projections were charming and, while some of the interpolations were better than others, the whole was more than the sum of its parts–kudos to Wendall K. Harrington’s designs.
Having been to Encores! as well as various other City Center productions, I found the orchestra’s elevation contributed to a more processed and less connected sound. The instruments seemed flat when I was seated in the orchestra section—perhaps the mezzanine had better intonation—though the vocals were fine and detailed.
While time may heal all wounds, it also wounds all heels and none of us is immune. It is clear in the course of this wandering back in time that there were many places where the friends could have taken a step back and become closer still for checking in with one another, but then this dwelling on communication is also a conceit of living in the 21st century. In 1981, the inventor of the answering machine was amazing. In the ensuing 30 years, a generation has grown up not knowing a world where it didn’t exist. Do we keep in touch? The brave new world, when Frank, Charley and Mary met under the miracle of Sputnik, is still out there—it just remains to be found—and when these three young people sang “Our Time,” the song resonated for us as much now as it did then. What will YOU make happen? See the show, get inspired.
Visit NYCityCenter.org for tickets and more information. “Merrily” runs only through February 19, and both tickets and time are running out–give your funny Valentine an experience to remember!