Producers: Sonia Friedman, David Babani, Patrick Catullo, F. Richard Pappas, Jon Kamen and Dave Sirulnick Director: Maria Friedman Screenplay: George Furth Music and lyrics: Stephen Sondheim Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, Linsday Mendez, Krystal Joy Brown, Katie Rose Clarke, Reg Rogers, Max Rackenberg, Sherz Aletaha, Brianna Stoute, Leana Rae Concepcion, Morgan Kirner, Coby Getzug, Corey Mach, Talie Simone Robinson, Amanda Rose, Jamila Sabares-Klem, Brian Sears, Christian Strange, Koray Tarhan, Vishal Vaidya, Natalie Wachen, Jacob Keith Watson and David Purdy Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Grade: B
“Merrily We Roll Along” was Stephen Sondheim’s biggest Broadway flop. Opening in 1981 after a long series of previews that had spawned disastrous word-of-mouth, it was met by overwhelmingly negative reviews and managed to survive for only sixteen performances.
Yet even its detractors found good things to say about Sondheim’s score—several songs became standards, and an original cast album kept the flame alive—and in the years following its failure he, librettist George Furth and others have tinkered with the musical which, inspired by the 1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, told its story—about a successful songwriting team that had a falling-out and the long-time friend who tried to bridge the gap between them—in reverse chronological order, beginning in the mid-seventies and ending when the trio first came together in 1957. The effort can be compared to similar efforts to “rescue” Leonard Bernstein’s famously beleaguered “Candide,” another show in which, it was said, a great score was wedded to a problematic book.
Finally in 2024 a Broadway revival finally justified one of Sondheim’s songs, “It’s A Hit!” Top-lining three established stars, it earned stellar reviews and won the Tony for best musical revival. It was also a financial success, running for more than three hundred performances. The Stephen Sondheim Trust opted to preserve it for posterity, filming it at the Hudson Theatre over several nights in June, 2024 and enabling folks who couldn’t possibly have afforded the staggering ticket prices (and brokers’ fees) to see it. The result is now being released to theatres.
It’s more than a “performance capture” effort, however. Director Maria Friedman and editor Spencer Averick have cut the footage shot by cinematographer Sam Levy before live audiences with close-ups filmed on the closed stage. The result is reasonably cinematic, though for a real movie one will have to wait: in 2019 Richard Linklater began shooting a version that will be filmed over a couple of decades, after the fashion of his “Boyhood.”
The film makes as strong a case for the tweaked musical as one could hope. The principal cast is without a weak link. Jonathan Groff is excellent as handsome Broadway composer Frank. who sells out for Hollywood, and Daniel Radcliffe superb as elfin Charley, the librettist he breaks with in the process, while Lindsay Mendez brings out the poignancy of Mary, the writer-turned-drama-critic whose love for Frank goes unrequited. Katie Rose Clarke has spunk as Frank’s first wife and Krystal Joy Brown sass as his second, while Reg Rogers squeezes out of Furth’s cynical quips whatever there is to get. The ensemble, most of whom play multiple roles, respond as energetically as the stars to Friedman’s direction and Tim Jackson’s choreography, while Joel Fram conducts Jonathan Tunick’s slimmed-down orchestrations with elan. Soutra Gilmour’s set and costumes keep things simple, but they’re adequate.
So does “Merrily We Roll Along” emerge as a Sondheim masterpiece? Certainly his score is excellent, if not the equal of his most innovative, being more conventionally Broadway in style than either of the works that bookend it—1979’s “Sweeney Todd” and 1984’s “Sunday in the Park With George.” But the book still has nagging problems. The dichotomy between Broadway idealism and Hollywood compromise is too easy (after all, we’re told that Charley’s new play has won a Pulitzer—but so did “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” which is hardly a reservoir of Deep Thoughts); and though the three stars deepen their characters, Frank, Charley and Mary remain fairly surface constructs. And while Friedman’s skill points up the reverse reminiscences that flow, mostly through the score, from later episodes to earlier ones, the reverse chronological gambit remains a hurdle not completely overcome.
So Sondheim’s flop remains an imperfect show, but this revival proves—as have the many amateur productions since 1981 (many of them in high schools, where its message about the difficulty of staying true to your dreams is especially apt)—that it’s one that can satisfy audiences, even if it’s hardly your ordinary rah-rah crowd-pleaser.