Theater Review: Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Merrily We Roll Along,’ From the Roundabout Theatre Co.

When I heard that Merrily We Roll Along, Stephen Sondheim’s flop-turned-cult favorite, was being trimmed for a production by the Roundabout Theatre Co., I feared for the worst. 

Hadn’t the musical been through enough already, with all its various versions—not just the 1981 Broadway originals, but revivals in LaJolla Playhouse, New York’s York Theater, and in Leicester, England that saw overhauls of the songs and "book"?

I needn’t have worried, though. Sure, there is no longer an overture in the show, nor “The Hills of Tomorrow,” the high-school graduation song that bookended the original production. 

But still intact are the other tunes that Sondheim aficionados like me embraced: “Not a Day Goes By,” “Old Friends,” “Good Thing Going,” “Our Time”—among the finest lyrics and melodies created by the most influential American musical theater figure of the last half century. And other tunes have been added that clarify the motives among the principals, such as “Growing Up” and “He’s Only a Boy.” 

Collaborating with the composer-lyricist himself, the Roundabout’s company-in-residence, The Fiasco Theater, has not so much downsized the material as reimagined it for this production (which closes, after a slightly extended run, this weekend, at the Roundabout’s small-scale Laura Pels Theatre). In addition to changes made in the La Jolla and London productions, it has mined earlier drafts among Sondheim’s archives, even the original 1934 George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart play.

With this troupe, the accent is on minimalism—six actors (with three assuming multiple roles), especially rapid costume changes, and just enough props to suggest changes in geography. (The set by Derek McLane tips its hat to the original production—there’s a sign for the Alvin Theater, where the 1981 show premiered and died.) It’s a tribute to their imagination and verve that they succeed so well this time.

The result is a more cohesive, tighter—even intermission-less—show. For all its warnings about the trappings of success, it’s easier to see than ever—even without conventionally sympathetic leads, even going back in time (like Harold Pinter’s Betrayal) to find out how the trio at the heart of this “got off the track” from each other—that this is a show about friendship, filled with a quality that Sondheim detractors have wrongly accused him of lacking: heart. 

The reversion-in-time device—admittedly dangerous because it risks losing audience sympathy for the characters at the start—pays off, as it did not at the time of the premiere, because Sondheim reprises the same songs under different circumstances, with the lyrics remaining the same but their meaning changing.

Following its well-received version of a later Sondheim musical, Into the Woods, a few years ago, The Fiasco group chose, in Merrily, far riskier fare. But clearly, it saw this work not merely as a labor of love but a common bond with the evolution of its own artistic mission: Like the two men and one woman at the heart of Merrily, the co-artistic directors of Fiasco—Noah Brody, Ben Steinfeld, and Jessie Austrian—have had to balance creative daring with the compromises needed to assure the company’s survival.

To be sure, even this time, not all the critics thought that the production’s creators had a “Good Thing Going,” either. But, though the “book” by George Furth has long been identified as the problem with this musical, after the several attempts at a rewrite, it’s only right to say that those difficulties have been exaggerated. Jokes from the original show that fell flat (e.g., about aging film actresses returning to Broadway to revive their careers, thought way back when as a dig at Elizabeth Taylor) have been excised, and the leads are middle-aged actors going back to their early 20s rather than kids asked to age into their mid-40s.

In this revamped version, Mary Flynn, the female friend with a single novel to her credit, comes in for the most noticeable character reshaping. (Literally so: midway through the proceedings, Jessie Austrian spits out olives and stage liquor while shedding Mary's frowzy costumes, revealing the svelte young woman there before booze and bitterness got the best of her.)

As Franklin Shepard, the talented composer who loses his way, Ben Steinfeld can’t get much beyond the bland compromiser who sacrifices marriage and friendship on the altar of his lust and ambition. But he’s helped by a change in the late stages of the script that makes Frank’s conduct more understandable.

Of the main trio of actors, Manu Narayan needs the least help from script changes in making his character sympathetic. Narayan, who appeared in the Lincoln Center production of My Fair Lady last fall, makes the most of his solo number here, “Franklin Shepard Inc.”—an on-air nervous breakdown in which his Charlie Kringas vents frustration with old buddy Frank for his obsession with business and his increasingly dilatory work habits.

The other, subordinate acting trio also acquits itself well. As Frank’s wronged first wife Beth, Brittany Bradford turns “Not a Day Goes By,” often interpreted as a torch song, into a cry of hurt and fury. Emily Young invests considerable intelligence into her glamorous man-trap Gussie Carmichael. And Paul C. Coffey brings varying measures of Broadway bonhomie and desperation to the role of producer Joe Joseph (a role, incidentally, played in the 1981 show by a very young, pre-Seinfeld Jason Alexander).

The plot of Merrily, involving family connections among the makers of a musical (both of Frank’s wives are involved, at one stage or another, in his shows), is mirrored by the creators of this production. Jessie Austrian, for instance, is married to director Noah Brody, and music director Alexander Gemignani has created the new musical arrangements for the small band, as his father Paul was with a large orchestra for the original show.

The real-life creation of Merrily We Roll Along was filled with abundant passion and pain (all chronicled in the 2016 documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, which I reviewed here.) But the multiple attempts to revive it derive from the even more considerable passion and pain in the music and lyrics themselves. 

Have the Roundabout and Fiasco created a Merrily that won’t change anymore? Probably not. But what does it matter in an age when even shows with what are considered the most solid “books,” such as Oklahoma and My Fair Lady, end up reinterpreted quite differently? More important, a new set of theatergoers will get to hear Sondheim songs that are uncommonly witty, wise and warm.