Rarely seen photos of original MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG- Page 2

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 6/26/14 at 2:55am

Yeah, what happened to "Hills Of Tomorrow" in more recent versions? I've always thought that the original framing device sounded like it could have worked, and could even allow for some sort of closure on Frank's story (not that the original production seems to have done that). I also think that this type of story would work better with a framing device, rather than just the musical transitions.

And it really is a great song for those moments.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 6/26/14 at 6:56am

Re "word on the street" caused by the lack of an out-of-town tryout:

It occurred to me later that MERRILY may have simply been the first time Prince and Sondheim were in town to HEAR what their "friends" had been saying while the two collaborators were out of town with earlier musicals.

****

Mr. Nowack, my memory is that I found the graduation scenes theatrically mechanical and dull. (But I readily admit it was 35 years ago.) And I do love the title song. INTO THE WOODS shows how well the device works when the motion of the song isn't fighting the motion of the "action". (Re another show, Sondheim once called music the "monster" of a show because of its relentless momentum. I have no idea why he thought we wouldn't feel the strain when the music and purported action were set in opposite directions.)

Updated On: 6/26/14 at 06:56 AM

[morosco]

Posted: 6/26/14 at 1:03pm

Oh there's the pool made from paper!

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 6/26/14 at 2:09pm

These photos are giving me tingles.

Gaveston: I do know one reason they did an in-town try-out was because they'd done it with Sweeney Todd (because of Eugene Lee's monstrous factory set), and it had been a huge success, and I have no idea what effect that would have but it's interesting to note.

Also, the graduation scenes always had the trouble of feeling sort of perfunctory, that they were there because they were there, because they were there. The version in the previews was just awful, and the version on the cast album is at best passable, which can be said of a good portion of the book - passable.

This musical is the theatrical version of the Gordian Knot, I swear.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/26/14 at 7:04pm

I caught the original production about 1/2 way through previews. we were trying to see it a few days before opening but arrived in town to read in The Times that the opening ahd been postponed 2 weeks. (The staff at CHARGIT - the phone ordering service were of no help...every performance I requested I was told was sol out yet the Box Office staff told me they had plenty of tickets available.) The date I finally got was Saturday Oct 24. By that time the Swimming pool was gone, the outlandish costumes were scrapped adn the part-encoded T-shirts were in. The score was pretty much as heard on the OCR except that Beth was singing "Not a Day Goes By" and the song "honey" was still in Act II. The backwards structure was and is not the problem. But by starting at the end you are expected to somehow know who these people are an why much of what is happening in the first few scenes is so crucial. (I had read the Kaufmann-Hart play in advance , but even so these were new characters in the musical.) Still the final scenes ("Our Time" an the final Graduation scene "Hills of Tomorrow" brought a lump to the throat thinking of those lost dreams. (The big Cheesy smiles s the last chord played and a camera flashed for the class picture and the curtain came down on those beaming faces still haunts me.)

One other memory from that night..The first number of Act Two is "It's a Hit" and as they sang that number people began getting up and walking in ..at least 100 of them! WOW.

I was not wildly loving the show, but the songs were wonderful: "Old Friend", "Not a Day Goes By" and "Good Thing Going." In fact I bought another ticker to see the show again 3 nights later - JUST to hear that score again. I knew it would be a long wait for the record to come out. (It finally got released the following April.) I have seen a number of productions with the revised script but I miss the opening and closing graduation scenes that neatly book ended the action.

For me, knowing the show inside and out, I think it works but it does ask a lot of a first-time audience.

[Kad]

Posted: 6/26/14 at 7:43pm

I don't think it asks a lot of any audience, really, other than patience. The story it's telling is very simple, albeit in reverse.

Gaveston hits the nail on the head on this (as he often does).

The central question is "How did we get to be here?" But the answers it provides aren't very compelling or insightful. And that's terrible when, as Gav mentioned, there's no forward momentum, just irony.

The musical also focuses on beginnings and ends and not very much on middles, when it comes to the characters' relationships. Even the central, most important relationship of Mary-Frank-Charlie is sketchy in the middle. Why are they friends? They sing about how they're friends. But we don't see much of their actual friendship- and the best place for that was "Opening Doors", which is a dramatically unfulfilled song because it's like a SparkNotes page of a scene. It plays much better out of context; for me, in context, it's always seemed like "We need to wrap this up but we need to do this part."

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/26/14 at 8:17pm

One issue with the show, especially originally, that I haven't seen brought up in this thread yet. I'm not sure about Furth but Hal Prince and Sondheim seemed to have no idea what kind of show they were making. Prince, in particular was excited to make an optimistic, youthful show. In Look, I Made a Hat, Sondheim talks at some length about this. And yet the story they were telling is really, if it's anything, depressing and sad.

In the original concept with the kids putting on the show, because they are annoyed with Frank Sr's cynicism in his speech doesn't really SAY anything. At the end, do they learn anything? I guess Frank Sr does since on the cast album he comes back saying his lines with a lump in his throat so he realizes what he lost. But the kids don't.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/26/14 at 8:19pm

I will say that watching the UK version, over a decade since seeing a previous version, the backwards nature didn't bother me. I sorta enjoyed the mystery element that probably would test some audience's patience--finding out who these characters are, how they're connected, etc. But that really only takes you so far.

Still, I love the show. I don't think it's a great show by any means (it is a great score,) but I find it touching and moving, at least I did in that production. Again, I don't think it really has any lesson to teach, but it does make me think about friends I've lost along the way (hopefully not because of acting like Frank,) etc.