Merrily was amazing -- up to a point

I think Maria Friedman, Lindasy Mendez, Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe did everything they possibly could to elevate the material. But paradoxically, their finesse and skill just highlighted the underlying flaws in the script and years of revisions. The book still feels clunky and trite, never really showing you convincingly how and why their friendship cratered -- Frank goes on a cruise and comes back greedy? Really? Also, the female characters are underwritten and are given little to do except obsess about Frank. Mary's unrequited love, in particular, feels totally unmerited. What's her book about? What kind of writer is she? What are her artistic goals? Seems like nobody cared enough to write those details into the script.

On top of this, some of the musical changes over the years have made the show worse, not better. "That Frank" is an inferior number to "Rich and Happy." "The Blob" is dumb and unnecessary. The rest of the score is amazing, though, and I've never seen It's a Hit or Bobby and Jackie and Jack done to such wonderful effect.

I loved this production. But the show itself...it's still not perfect.

I guess it's kind of a known thing now, but my impression of Gussie's Opening Number was that it was supposed to start off as sounding like she's singing a soliloquy about her relationship to Frank and then when the dancers/curtain come in, it's revealed it's actually a number from their musical.

I do agree that the female characters are terribly underwritten, especially poor Mary, but it really impresses me how much Lindsay Mendez (along with other actors before her) are able to wring from that role. I'm also in agreement that Rich and Happy is a better number, but it does start off the show with a different tone as well.

Wayman_Wong said: "Not sure why the lead opinion warranted an e new thread. It could've been added to the existing ''Merrily'' thread."

It’s a public forum. There’s no rules against creating threads. People can create threads on what they want and on whatever topic they want. They do not need to comment on an already established thread if they don’t want to.

And it looks like reddit, a billion posts asking the same exact question, thinking it's somehow profound.

Please cut me a break -- I've never posted here before. Never will again.

It used to be much easier to find the threads about specific shows. Now things get hidden so easily. It is hard enough for regular users to find some threads, I don't know how new users have a hope?

But probably people should lurk for a while before jumping in & starting new threads.

When was the Merrily thread last on top of the board?

The search function is not functional. We can see dumboneinatree only joined yesterday. He gave a considered opinion on a current show. That's what the board is for. Blustering misanthropes is who was there as a welcome. Sad.

I started a thread on Barbara's new book, not knowing there was already one in existence. It had not appeared since April. These things happen.

Let's be honest--if the OP is going to get this huffy about the relatively mild criticism offered in this thread, they weren't going to last long in the nest of vipers that is this board, so better to find out now. Can you imagine how they'd react when JSquared or Sutton or any of the other terrors around here come for them? Gotta have thick skin around here, because too many people (none of whom are here so far) are simply...not nice.

To the subject at hand, the late Michael Feingold wrote a fascinating review of the 1994 Off-Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along. In it, he expressed the feeling that Merrily as revised worked better than many "hits" of that era. He wrote something that really stuck with me - how perfect do our musicals truly need to be in order to be considered a worthy evening. Some critics and theatre fans will say this show "can't" work because the original production failed, and therefore it will never be viable. And yet, the show has more laughs, great songs and more of an emotional punch than shows that were greater successes. London has always been kinder to Merrily than New York has been, up until this current production, largely because they don't approach it with the same baggage that we do.

I've seen the revised Merrily in four productions and I feel this production makes the strongest case by far for the rewrite. It is immensely satisfying, with no apologies or cavils required. To the OP's point about the women's roles being underwritten, I think there is as much to them as the show can reasonably hold. The characters circulate around Frank and they are largely defined by their relationship to him. Knowing more about Mary's novel, or Beth's greater hopes and desires would be ancillary.

It's sad that an actress has to cry her lines because she simply can't hit the notes required. Even worse, is that people hire her! She couldn't hit the notes in Wicked or in Piazza, and she does it again here in Merrily. She can't sing the roles she is given, but I blame the casting people and producers, that are absolutely incompetent nowadays. Not Katie, she wants to work and has bills to pay, so she should take the roles she gets, the issues is that she keeps getting them despite the fact that hundreds of other actresses have the talent to sing those songs and don't get a chance. The same regarding the actress playing Gussie, I blame the incompetent casting people ruining most shows on Broadway, when there is so much appropriate talent to cast.

I can name plenty of actresses, who are not working right now, who could play those roles much MUCH better. Elizabeth Stanley is a much better Gussie, who can sing the part much better and has the pizzazz required and Betsy Wolfe for Beth, not sure if she is still in &Juliet. She can act and hit the notes required!

Updated On: 11/9/23 at 01:08 AM

muscle23ftl said: "It's sad that an actress has to cry her lines because she simply can't hit the notes required. Even worse, is that people hire her! She couldn't hit the notes in Wicked or in Piazza, and she does it again here in Merrily. She can't sing the roles she is given, but I blame the casting people and producers, that are absolutely incompetent nowadays. Not Katie, she wants to work and has bills to pay, so she should take the roles she gets, the issues is that she keeps getting them despite the fact that hundreds of other actresses have the talent to sing those songs and don't get a chance. The same regarding the actress playing Gussie, I blame the incompetent casting people ruining most shows on Broadway, when there is so much appropriate talent to cast.

I can name plenty of actresses, who are not working right now, who could play those roles much MUCH better. Elizabeth Stanley is a much better Gussie, who can sing the part much better and has the pizzazz required and Betsy Wolfe for Beth, not sure if she is still in &Juliet. She can act and hit the notes required!"



You sound ridiculous.

Smaxie said: "To the subject at hand, the late Michael Feingold wrote a fascinating review of the 1994 Off-Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along. In it, he expressed the feeling that Merrily as revised worked better than many "hits" of that era. He wrote something that really stuck with me - how perfect do our musicals truly need to be in order to be considered a worthy evening. Some critics and theatre fans will say this show "can't" work because the original production failed, and therefore it will never be viable. And yet, the show has more laughs, great songs and more of an emotional punch than shows that were greater successes. London has always been kinder to Merrily than New York has been, up until this current production, largely because they don't approach it with the same baggage that we do.

I've seen the revised Merrily in four productions and I feel this production makes the strongest case by far for the rewrite. It is immensely satisfying, with no apologies or cavils required. To the OP's point about the women's roles being underwritten, I think there is as much to them as the show can reasonably hold. The characters circulate around Frank and they are largely defined by their relationship to him. Knowing more about Mary's novel, or Beth's greater hopes and desires would be ancillary."

While I think Mary is underwritten and portrayed as too pathetic, with a quick and glib explanation of her alcohol problems, I agree that the role has a lot of juicy lines to speak and songs to sing. Lindsay Mendez does a marvelous job at portraying someone who is trying, desperately, to keep a friendship together. A lot of people have been there, even if we don't have decades-long crushes or substance abuse problems to go with it. This is the first time I had seen a Merrily We Roll Along production in person, but I thought the show was effective even in the videotaped versions I've watched on YouTube. Not this effective, though. It was the best revival I've ever seen, emphasizing every one of its strengths and covering up what I've in the past thought were weaknesses or turning them into positives.

I'm still not sure if this Merrily revival is a great revival of a flawed musical or the revival that reveals the great musical that's been there since it was tweaked decades ago. I'm in the middle of reading, Look, I Made a Hat, and was recently reading through the 100+ pages Stephen Sondheim wrote recounting the Wise Guys/Bounce/Road Show saga. I can understand why Sondheim was attracted to the material and have never seen the show, but part of me wondered, "Why did he and John Weidman keep banging away at this musical for years, revising it countless times?" And the best answer I have is: Maybe Sondheim thought - or hoped - that he had another Merrily. Because look how that one is turning out. It just took 42 years.

Updated On: 11/10/23 at 02:52 AM

Can someone tell me--is the set as ugly and bland as it looks in photos? I realize this is a pretty shallow question, but every time I see pictures from the production, I just think it looks awful. I'll never get to see the show myself, so I'm curious what people think.