Merrily We Roll Along OBC Clips (Audio/Video)

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 1/6/12 at 2:41pm

Hopefully this is, generally speaking, kosher. I've posted some of these clips before but I'm working on some new clips so I thought I'd put them all into a thread for people to see and share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jsun1hXCX4 - "Bump!/Historical Transitions" (audio). These are the original transitions that work through the events of the era, cut for length.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDDWHvypZw - "Darling!" (audio) Gussie's Polo Lounge song, also cut for length ("The Blob" lasted a little longer). One of the more unfortunate cuts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIRGxJfBOhw - "Rich And Happy" (video) Video from the show's brief open run, this is the song in its finalized form (it was originally much longer). I love the "blob" choreography.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxd7bhol5nI - "Polo Lounge Scene (Part 1)" (video) The dialogue that precedes Mary's song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m5ViVUfv6k - "Now You Know (Dance Break)" (video) Video from the open run. The dance break went through several iterations.

The transitions are the newest clip. Not sure what next to put up, there are a few good ones, such as the original transition from the school to Frank's party, the original Rich And Happy, the brief party scene ("Radical Chic At Frank's") at Frank's in 1968, another version of the dance break, Terry Finn's performance of "The Blob", "Thank You For Coming", and "Honey". These are all audio clips.

Enjoy, anyways!

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 1/6/12 at 4:50pm

Wow, did those bring back some painful memories..... Im not sure if I should thank you or not.

[artisn'teasy]

Posted: 1/6/12 at 8:14pm

Thank you for posting these! I wasn't around for the OBC so I love getting to see/hear this stuff.

Also, I didn't post this, but it was a suggested video when I watched one of yours:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_RvOJ6sW8A&feature=related "Opening Doors" (video)

[uncageg]

Posted: 1/7/12 at 12:23am

Thank you for the posts. Makes me wish I had seen it even more. Seeing the Encores! production next month.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 1/7/12 at 2:16am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcIEtYzWc6g - "Rich And Happy (Audio)"

There's a lengthy description in the link but suffice to say there's a good portion of music in there you'll never hear anywhere else (none of those lyrics were printed in Sondheim's "Finishing The Hat", either, and it's a shame I can't find my copy of the draft because then I could accurately transcribe them).

Glad you guys like the stuff. There's also this clip of Ann Morrison singing "Like It Was" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgqSG4zrn1o. Ann Morrison's amazing.

uncageg - I hope the Encores! production is good. It's probably wishful thinking to hope it'll go beyond Encores! but, hell, I can't say that wouldn't be nice, even if it is the revised draft (nobody will ever be able to convince me that losing the high school bookends wasn't a bad idea).

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 1/7/12 at 3:06am

Thanks! One of the first "live" (coff coff) videos I got when I became obsessed with Sondheim at around 12 was this--and I remember in my naivity I expected it to look like a filmed production, so was kinda annoyed at how bad the quality was (pretty much like this). I haven't watched it in years, and after many similar, live, recordings it actually doesn't look so bad.

As for the show itself... Oy. It really is as ugly as everyone said. I believe Sondheim and prince both said they should have just gone with their original plan of Our Town no sets, instead of Eugene Lee's (who I don't blame) weird bleachers and random set pieces (why have a billboard for Frank's awful movie if you decide not ot have other set elements? no rhyme or reason).

When I was young I used to think that surely the show was simply a misfired due to critics and the disastrous preview period--and I do think the revised version, while less exciting, more or less works. But now I realize it really was the rare Prince/Sondheim show where they didn't really seem to know what they were doing (like Bounce)--wanting to create an optimistic, youthful show, and then choosing subject matter that reall was wistful to say the least, the ideas of design etc.

I'd love to know about the choreography. I like Larry Fuller, and his "blob" choreography is great, albeit very reminiscent of the socialites choreography he did for Prince's Evita (but it fits)--but why was the, arguably more talented Ron Field fired? Was he just a victim of people trying to fix what they could? Does anyone remember if his choreography was much different? It seems odd that he was the only one fired when, I'm pretty certain in my cojecture, his contribution to a show that only has some elements of dance and movement were the least of the issues...

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 1/7/12 at 3:11am

And what happened to Ann Morrison? IBDB says she was an understudy for the lead, and had bit parts, in LoveMusik but I can't find anything else...

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 1/7/12 at 4:06am

In the Rich And Happy video you can see a couple photos of the show with its original set, which was a high school gymnasium ringed by lockers. The "students" would change between scenes at their lockers, which underlined the original concept of Frank's life as a high school production. I still think that's a good concept, but naturally it was mostly thrown out during the frantic overhauls during the previews, replaced by Eugene Lee's massive, unwieldy, and bizarre rotating unit set (I heard said of it once that it only just stopped short of "chewing up and spitting out the actors"). I'm only a bit above educated amateur enthusiast when it comes to scenic design but even I can see the flaws. The thing that really gets me is the massive amount of space behind the set. It just looks weird. I know they had issues with the hydraulic bleachers, too (they were too slow). It probably says something that it's pretty much impossible to find any photos of it, and I'm sure that if Eugene Lee ever gets a book of his work published Merrily will be glossed over.

Prince, Sondheim, and Furth were definitely all working in different directions. If they'd managed to pull it all off it would, I think, be regarded as a very interesting piece of theater but they kept working in the wrong direction. You're right that the revised version "works" while being less exciting. It has the feel of a show that was developed via compromise, that Sondheim and Lapine were trying to strike a balance between amiable watchability Prince and Furth's more striking, alienating ideas. Some of the dialogue in the revision is downright bad, frankly.

These are well-trodden soils but I can't stop myself revisiting, haha.

As far as I know Ron Field was fired due to arguments with Hal Prince, who seems to have had a hell of an ego on this production (leading to one of the bigger mistakes, previewing in New York). My theory is that Prince focused on him because choreography was basically the only thing he couldn't control, so obviously it was Field's fault, etc. Unless there's a member here who can accurately recall Field's choreography it seems like an answer lost to time. I remember a comment, I think by Field, in Sondheim & Co along the lines of "If I'd hidden all the bad dancers there'd have been nothing left but that awful set".

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 1/7/12 at 4:43am

Ha it's been years since I've read Sondheim and Co. but that quote is familiar. Prince has admitted more recently how working with a show where numbers are staged by choreographers makes him uncomfortable because dance is something he doesn't understand (which is why it's strange that he's now working with Stroman). From my very limited experience, I think Fuller is more of a "mover" than a choreographer (and he does it brilliantly), whereas Field's was more about having dance showcases (that at their best did reflect the show--and his Telephone Dance for Cabaret is one of my all time fave Broadway dance numbers).

I actually didn't realize this was the earlier set--but obviously with the semi costumes it is. I think because nearly all the photos seem to (if they show anything) show this set, that I sorta started to think it was the final set. At any rate I think the common blame (even above the set and concept--which is legit) on the cast is a bit unfair. Yes they were young, but I still have found via bootleg, and the recording them always pro quality.

I o agree about the revision. i think it *works* (and I know I've argued this with you before), but I think it does make it a bit of a less interesting show.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 1/7/12 at 4:44am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOjmenBx-EI - "Honey" (preview audio)

I edited out "Not A Day Goes By", which was sung in between the two halves of "Honey". Both songs were sung behind the Upstairs Room stage (where they sing "Bobby And Jackie And Jack") before the wedding. It's too bad this wasn't brought back with The Blob during the '85 La Jolla revision.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 1/8/12 at 2:30am

I don't know the exact timeline of Lee's set but there's definitely a shift from high-school production to that crazy combine harvester. Somewhere out there is a photo of Ann Morrison standing at the piano in the first scene and you can see the original set (or lack of) stretching away behind her. I think the two sets that always make me raise an eyebrow are the polo lounge and the courthouse steps. The polo lounge looks more like a Dairy Delite than a place "everyone goes when they don't want to see everyone" and the steps, particularly during "Now You Know", just kind float unhappily in the massive gymnasium space.

And yeah, the kids weren't a bunch of little Larry Kurts and Bernadette Peterses but they were far from bad. On the other hand I can understand broadwaygoers being miffed to discover the broadway price was paying for a cast probably more suited to off-broadway (the whole show, indeed, might have fared better there). Still, it's always a joy to hear and see them - Ann Morrison, Lonny Price, James Weissenbach, Terry Finn, Jason Alexander, et al.

I'm always a little harder on the revision than I probably should be but there's definitely a difference. I've said it before but the revised script is so cold that I haven't seen a production of it yet that wasn't lit predominately in blue (wonder if that isn't influenced at least in part by the jangly newer arrangements - another unfortunate change). A lot of the details are cut out, it became more straightforwardly "dramatic" as if they thought the backwards structure was enough of a burden on their audience to justify a simplified plot.

Updated On: 7/6/19 at 02:30 AM

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 7/5/19 at 4:08pm

Funny seeing my posts here from what feels like a lifetime ago. For anyone curious, here's a full recording of the second preview, which is nearly identical to a working draft script from earlier in 1981 (so early Franklin Shepard Inc was still a dialogue scene!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjIVlhMQ3UY

The photos come from the Martha Swope archive, which can be viewed on their own here:

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/martha-swope-photographs#/?tab=navigation&roots=5:46278380-c5ea-012f-65f0-58d385a7bc34/467d4590-c5ea-012f-6ea9-58d385a7bc34/509:f3ed2e60-c5f7-012f-22c6-58d385a7bc34

I've also found a very interesting set of of photographs of Eugene Lee's original set design models (the models themselves can be seen in the Swope photos!):

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/e2b4a170-a981-0136-2ae1-316f9677f8a9

Interesting to see the concept so clearly - it's like Lee's Sweeney cube blown up into a three-story house. It never occurred to me before that the idea here is that we were being taken on a physical trip into the past by winding around and around it. Presumably one of the main tricks was that the turntable would only move in one direction, which is kind of striking and a little bit dreamlike.

I'm starting to think my headstone will simply read "REVIVE MERRILY".

[Pernigraniline]

Posted: 7/5/19 at 4:20pm

Great pictures = the Merrily Logo was actually a set piece it looks like!

[KnewItWhenIWasInFron]

Posted: 7/5/19 at 4:23pm

EricMontreal22 said: "And what happened to Ann Morrison? IBDB says she was an understudy for the lead, and had bit parts, in LoveMusik but I can't find anything else..."

 

https://www.twincities.com/2015/06/10/damn-yankees-star-ann-morrison-brings-heart-to-ordway-musical/

 

[devonian.t]

Posted: 7/5/19 at 4:23pm

Amazing links Mr Kringas!

[jv92]

Posted: 7/6/19 at 2:20pm

Wow, those pictures of the set model are remarkable. The set finally makes sense to me now.

I think MERRILY is, despite its legend and its wonderful score, an unworkable gimmick of a show, but a fascinating one. Thanks for sharing those links! 

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 7/6/19 at 7:04pm

It's very interesting, and kind of a shame they almost entirely scrapped it - all that was left, basically, were the risers, the stairs, and the billboard platform.

I do think there's a workable concept, and it kind of functions, but you'd have to really change a couple of key things. I said the same in another thread recently, but they were a little bit hamstrung by the use of Gussie in the original play, which only became more of an issue in the late-80s revisions. There was a great, underdeveloped bit in the previews where Frank's father dies penniless, which panics him, and later he says something like "I can't be nobody with nothing!". That's really a key element here, and a Merrily that works would probably take a closer, more steely look at that idea - what all-American factors drive Frank to become a hollowed-out conglomerate? Gussie seducing Frank is a cop-out in this regard, because she's so clearly villainous in the later scenes that it just makes him seem like an asshole, rather than facing legitimate questions about money and purpose.

The recent revival bringing back one of the scenes from the original play where Meg and her family accuse Frank of being a lazy bum was a good idea in theory, but it did nothing to help the fact that Meg comes across as kind of a harridan.

[uncageg]

Posted: 7/6/19 at 7:19pm

I really enjoyed the Encores! production with one exception. I would have seen it again though, if possible.

[joevitus]

Posted: 7/10/19 at 1:37pm

It's baffling to me they thought they would get anything but the response they recived. I mean, the show says a musician who leaves behind "difficult, un-hummable" music to write fluff isn't just choosing a different course--he has to be a soulless, greedy, immoral lout (wonder how that read to every composer who wasn't Sondheim--and particularly to Jerry Herman or Andrew Lloyd Webber). And the other example of moral failure has gone from being a writer to "just a" critic. Bet you're going to get great notices from reviewers with that sort of character!

Plus, the show is just grueling to perform. The three leads are almost never off stage except for a second to make radical costume changes (for that reason, jettisoning them in the original previews was probably a relief for the cast), they have to be triple threats, the energy level has to keep going up because they are getting younger and younger with each scene, and the poor trio has to give their all to a giant production number near the end of Act 1 and then almost perform another big number with lots of moment as well as singing on their own to close the act. I worked as a dresser on a production in the late 80's that followed the original hight school-flashback script (but was done with adults and reinstated "The Blob", and it just leaves the performers frayed. It's a bad bad show.

Also a wonderful, wonderful score. Funny, exciting, touching. So the show will probably be with us forever.