Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
BroadwayBrat
Stand-by Joined: 11/29/04
#1Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/10/12 at 11:34pmI did several searches, bit could not find any new or recent information regarding the status of Merrily coming to Broadway for a full production. I am enjoying the Encores recording, but would also love to see the show.
#2Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/10/12 at 11:35pmDoubt it. Most of the cast have moved on to other projects.
I know you.
I know you.
I know you.
BroadwayBrat
Stand-by Joined: 11/29/04
#2Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/10/12 at 11:37pmI would even be happy with Doyle's version. Something...
#3Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/10/12 at 11:38pmAccording to Michael Reidel at the time, if Sondheim would have endorsed a production of the show on Broadway, it would have been the Doyle one. Neither appear to be moving on to a commercial life.
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
BroadwayBrat
Stand-by Joined: 11/29/04
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#5Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/10/12 at 11:49pm
Look, I named my dog Kringas, so I'm a big champion of this show, but even I am finally willing to concede its never ever going to work. And I'm sure Lin Manuel-Miranda was probably really fun on stage, because I find him to be a charming performer, but Charley Kringas just seemed to be a role he's not suited for. And it's just depressing that Frank and Charlie both sing "Good Thing Going."
I'd rather someone do a one man Merrily than see Doyle do it on Broadway. No one looking each other in the eye and stuff.
#6Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/11/12 at 12:00am
Hate to say it, but your normal Bway audience has the attnetion span of a flea these days. One of MY fave shows, however, is your avg. tourist gonna concentrate enough to follow a backwards storyline? I think not. Unless Tom Cruise is in i. 
A very niche musical for us theatre nuts.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#7Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/11/12 at 12:03amI love it and will always root for it, but maybe, like the show it self, I find myself more cynical and jaded about it as I get older.
Wynbish
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/27/12
#8Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/11/12 at 12:08am
At least with Last 5 Years, only half the story is backwards, but I agree with tiny. The concept is hard to turn into a hit, especially when the beginning (but really the end) is not even a happy one.
People stare at the aftermath of a car wreck to figure out who was to blame, but who wants to actually see what happened?
#9Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/11/12 at 1:07am
I have a very, very special place for the score of MERRILY, but I think the primary unsolvable problem about it is that the backward time device doesn't unearth anything special about the characters or the story. So they started off young and idealistic and became progressively cynical and bitter with age. Okay? If there was some big reveal that completely changed your perception of who the characters were at any given time, that'd be one thing, but there isn't.
It's also particularly problematic that Frank is such a poorly drawn and unlikable leading man, and you're given little to nothing to understand why. I think the show suffers in that regard in general- each scene feels like it's trying to fit so much narrative in that you never get to dig much below the surface to see who these people really are. I've always found Gussie to be the most interesting person in the piece, and that's because the story going backward in time actually reveals a significant change in her.
I saw both Doyle's production in Cincinatti and Lapine's incarnation at Encores!, and I found the casting of the central trio to be so problematic in both that the rest of the production in either was a moot point. Doyle's idea of using three significantly older actors fell completely flat, and while I loved Colin Donnell's Frank, Celia Keenan-Bolger and Lin-Manuel Miranda were so painfully miscast (and vocally under-equipped) in Lapine's version that any strengths they all presented in chemistry were lost by their inability to serve the material.
Sondheim and George Furth have made attempt after attempt at reworking and re-conceptualizing the show, and try as anyone might, I think it's destined to live as a piece that "could have been," much like the wistfulness the characters in it feel toward the failed prospects of their lives.
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
Updated On: 7/11/12 at 01:07 AM
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
#10Merrily We Roll on Broadway?
Posted: 7/11/12 at 1:42amI've heard audio of the Cincinatti Doyle production, and I can't believe how god awful it sounds. The orchestrations are terrible. Cutting the short instrumental break before the ending of NOW YOU KNOW is pretty ridiculous. Their Beth has a terrible voice, and couldn't handle her big song. Frank Jr, played by an adult, sounds like he was directed to play the role as an emotionally disturbed man-child. What's left of the book are only skeletal remains. I sure hope it doesn't come anywhere near Broadway.
