Flashback Friday: Merrily We Roll Along

With the Drama Desk Awards this weekend and the Tony Awards next weekend, we will see awards given for the best of this year’s theater. If one were to ask what is on the far opposite end of excellence in theater, a lot of people would think of the original Broadway run of Merrily We Roll Along. In fact, Merrily We Roll Along is known primarily for its short (16 performances) and poorly received run. While it ended the long successful partnership of Stephen Sondheim and director Hal Prince, it did end up being the subject of one of my favorite documentaries of all time. The Off-Broadway production from earlier this year took the beloved score and maligned play and tries to tone everything down and make the scale smaller. Most of the changes worked. While Merrily might always be a show that has problems by virtue of its conceit, this version really worked for me.

Throughout Merrily characters either make proclamations or take actions that make very little sense in the moment. Of course, as we’re watching the musical in reverse chronological order, you later find out the reason why a character was doing what they were doing. But even if you know this, it’s tough to watch. Character motivations don’t make sense until after the underlying action occurs, and it goes in the face of what we are used to watching. Going into every scene you know you will learn more about what happens before in the play and later in their lives but also be left asking more questions. In a normal play you’re fed small information throughout the play that explains relationships and actions of characters, and you aren’t faced with the same questions. With what this play is, I’m not sure there will ever be a staging of Merrily that doesn’t lend itself to some of these problems.

Despite these difficulties and limitations, this staging of Merrily made several changes to put on a successful, fun musical. First, the massive score was rearranged for a much smaller orchestra. This instantly made the musical feel more intimate. The musical moved away from the giant grandeur of the original production and also trimmed down the cast. The entirety of the cast was paired down to six actors: the three main friends and three other actors rotating through the large amount of characters that come into and out of these friends lives. Having the smaller cast worked because it reinforced the underlying idea that there are a few people in life who are mainstays and so many others come and go. The musical is at its core about three friends going through life, together and apart, and pairing everything down just emphasized the importance of their relationships first and foremost.

For the very same reason that it can be frustrating to watch earlier scenes, the last two songs of the musical work so beautifully. At that point, it is only the three friends. They are young and naïve, and they know the world is theirs for the taking. We have seen how their narrative plays out, and as the characters sing that it’s their time, you feel for them. Merrily is a show that is about optimism and pessimism, dreams dashed and realized, and all of the small moments that come in the pursuit of our dreams and with the people we love. It may never be the best staged show for the difficulties discussed above, but I can’t imagine ever hearing “It’s Our Time” closing out the show with that raw emotional optimism and not have my eyes start to fill with tears.