Jim Weissebach /Jim Walton in Merrily We Roll Along

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 5:01pm

Do we have any dirt on why Jim Walton replaced Jim Weissebach in the Broadway production of Merrily We Roll Along? I've only read short snippets that mention it but I don't know the "full" story. Can anyone fill me in?

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 9:39pm

The official story was that Walton (who was u/s the role) was deemed more "extroverted" and chosen to take over the role.

Weissenbach was an office assistant for Hal prince and was offered the lead and played through the first two torturous weeks of previews (when nothing was working at all.) He became the the fall guy as the creative team tried desperately to fix the show while playing previews. (Shows cannot be fixed in previews... ever.) At the time it was reported that he had been given the chance to u/s the role but declined the offer and departed the production, and show business for good it seems.

The show was making the news regularly all through its troubled start-up. Liz Smith wrote a nasty column for the Post (Not SO Merrily They Roll Out of the Theatre) about the many walk-outs during the show and the poisonous word-of-mouth. The opening was postponed twice. Ron Field was fired as choreographer, and then Jim Walton replaced James Weissenbach as lead.

The came the opening night with one positive review (Clive Barnes, in the Post!) and seven negative notices. The closing was quickly announced and the cast album was made the day after the final performance.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 11:04pm

I saw one of the final previews and then another performance during the first weekend. I don't remember him being particularly bad.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 7/20/12 at 12:17am

If you saw the show that late you saw Walton. Weissenbach was replaced just a few days before I saw the show on October 24. His replacement was written up in the NY Times along with the notice the show was postponing opening night from Nov 1 to Nov 16.

[Leadingplayer]

Posted: 7/20/12 at 3:46am

Weissenbach was an agent for a while...not sure if he still is. He represented Merrily co-star Jason Alexander.

[newintown]

Posted: 7/20/12 at 9:35am

Weissenbach was also the son of Hal Prince's college roommate; perhaps Prince felt that nepotism wasn't working so well for him...

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 6:30am

Jim Walton was not the understudy for Frank. David Cady was the understudy. Cady remained the understudy when Walton took over, and he replaced Walton as Jerome.

Weissenbach was not an office assistant for Hal Prince. He had a meeting with Prince because he wanted to be an assistant to Prince. Prince instead suggested that he audition for this new show he was doing.

I saw Weissenbach at the third preview, and he seemed very ill at ease.

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 6:38am

I just don't understand this show. I mean, to most people it wasn't the best show ever written, but it's one of the biggest flops in history. If you look at it though, I don't think it's THAT bad. There are many worse shows that have had much longer runs. Something just happened with Merrily, and although obviously the book was the weakest part, I think the score is one of the best ever written. 16 performances is just so...odd.

[After Eight]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 8:06am

^

It's really just a matter of ticket sales. If no one buys tickets, the show closes, whether it be after 16 performances, or 2,016.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 3:23pm

I've got a Playbill with Weissenbach as Frank.

My facile contribution to this thread is that, on the strength of the photos, he was considerably more fanciable than Jim Walton.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 8:34pm

I saw the first and last previews. Although Walton's performance is the one that sticks in my mind, there was so much wrong with the first preview that I'm not inclined to blame any member of the cast. The technical disasters alone overshadowed any performance.

As for the short, eventual run, MERRILY will never be more than a curiosity piece for all but we who are the most devoted fans of its composer. Its plot runs backwards, which means there is no dramatic suspense, only irony. The best each scene can do is explain to us how the characters got to where they were in the previous scene.

But the plot and characters aren't so complex as to require 2 and a half hours of inquiry. (As Frank Rich has noted, the plot is basically a rerun of ALLEGRO without the happy ending.)

None of this is to deny the richness of the music and lyrics. But as many have pointed out, musicals live or die by their books, not their scores.





Updated On: 7/22/12 at 08:34 PM

[PennybankBill]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 9:02pm

Scripps2: Does "fanciable" equal "****able"?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 9:10pm

To answer for Scripps--yes.

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 6:16am

I found this in Playbill.com. It 's a photogallery of the show. I saw in Playbill Vault that Merrily was the first and last show taht Weissenbach did. BTW frontrowcentre, your picture came up when I did a Google search on Weissenbach.
Merrily

[CurtainsUpat8]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 4:46pm

I saw the VERY FIRST preview of Merrily. The house was packed with Sondheim fans. I think it was his first show after Sweeney Todd. The overture started and everyone was psyched! Then the show started and it just got worse and worse. It was like one of those scenes in a Mel Brooks movie where the audience is shown with their mouths gaping open in disbelief. I remember someone got pushed in a swimming pool and they fell through a sheet of paper that was supposed to be the water. I don't remember the lead being the worst thing about it. The show is was in such awful shape it would have been difficult to blame one person. I have never been a fan of Jim Walton. His voice is kind of bright and piercing to me. But I will always remember what a disaster that first preview was.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 6:08pm

That is exactly my memory of that same performance, Curtains. But you forgot to mention how the actress who fell through the paper pool popped up again and spit out a mouthful of water!

At that point I was merely confused. By the end of the evening, I was laughing out loud--and not in the good way.

[justoldbill]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 6:21pm

The only two times in my life I have left the theatre absolutely infuriated were after the opening night of MERRILY (I avoided the previews), and the FOLLIES concert at Avery Fisher Hall.

Updated On: 11/30/14 at 06:21 PM

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 7:36pm

Merrily was definitely a victim of its own previews. The early scripts are vibrant and kind of weird in a good way, but because they workshopped it in front of a paying New York audience the tensions and pressures were impossibly high, so it wasn't given space to properly incubate and there was a lot of creative collapse. Sweeney Todd was also previewed in New York, but Sweeney was basically finished by the time it went into previews, mostly because it's essentially sung-through, so what the first preview audiences saw wasn't wholly different from what the opening night audiences saw. The exact opposite was true for Merrily.

As to whether Weissenbach was worse than Walton, it's hard to say. Weissenbach's Frank had an almost nerdy whine and was way more aw-shucks than Walton's flashy, ladder-climbing opportunist, but the material they were working with was so different.

[ARTc3]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 7:57pm

During this time, I lived around the corner and spend most of my evenings "second acting" or sneaking into the full performance. I saw, Merrily We Roll Along, most of its few performances. So much so, that the creative team took notice and one night invited me to offer my comments. It was a very exciting night for me and I remember it well.

I remember suggesting that the choice to thematically frame the piece in a high school gym was problematic and that if they wanted an umbrella concept that a high school auditorium with the cast preparing for the school musical would be more appropriate. Mr. Prince and Mr. Sondheim liked my idea, but unfortunately it was too late.

* * *

Anyway... I saw both Franks and although I thought Mr. Walton an improvement. However, as mentioned earlier, there were far greater issues to overcome. People were confused and when they changed the costumes to t-shirts explaining who everyone was, it was clear they were lost.

[Fantod]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 8:09pm

A huge problem with the show is that George Furth is an awful book writer. Sure, he wrote Company (I personally really don't like the book to that show, though), but he also wrote The Act, The Supporting Cast, Precious Sons, and (sigh) Getting Away With Murder. I think if a different book writer took a look at the original script they could get the show to work. I personally don't think the structure is a problem, as the original Kaufman Hart play works very well on paper and the recent Chocolate Factory production was pretty good aside from some ridiculous dialogue and a cheap production. I remain optimistic that the show will finally become good instead of just beautiful.

[jv92]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 9:01pm

ARTc3, I'm sort of shocked that they asked you for advice (not because you're not insightful, but because they're not known for doing that sort of thing), but what a great story! Good for you.

[ARTc3]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 9:41pm

I was very young at the time, and that particular night I stood in the back for the first act and grabbed a seat for the second. I had been going for several nights as I was fascinated by the show. I don't remember why, but for some reason I lingered long after the show ended and Mr. Sondheim came up to me and acknowledged that he recognized that I had already been several times. I don't remember if I volunteered my opinions, or if he asked, but we began chatting and I was very flattering and he thought it would boost morale if I stayed and offered the cast my positive feedback, so I did.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 10:02pm

There's a book called "Nothing Like A Dame" with interviews with Briadway leading ladies. Tonya Pinkins has a chapter and, being in the ensemble, she talks a little about the experience. I think her chapter is available as a free thing.

[Fantod]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 10:41pm

Is this it, Sally?

http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199941209/pdf/Tonya_Pinkins.pdf

EDIT: I just wanted to say after reading that interview that she sounds like a huge b!tch (pardon my French). Updated On: 11/30/14 at 10:41 PM

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 11/30/14 at 10:55pm

That would be it, Fantod.

I have always felt Tonya was a very intense person/performer. You can see why she might be very intent on her shows having success, what with her child and all. And compared to Patti LuPone's remarks on Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown ("We were saddled with a terrible leading lady (Sherie Rene Scott)"), her comments on Toni Collette hardly seem that bad.