Review: Broadway World Returns For A Second Look At ANN MORRISON: MERRILY FROM CENTER STAGE At 54 Below

Heigh-Ho, My Merry Rainbow readers! Bobby Patrick, your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Putting the silent T in cabareT to bring you ALL the Tea!

So my lovelies, if you read our boss Stephen Mosher - and we certainly hope you DO read Stephen Mosher - then you have read his review of Ann Morrison: MERRILY FROM CENTER STAGE at 54 Below, and know what a great experience it was for him. So much so that, for the first time ever, he tasked little Bobby with taking another look at our original Mary from the legendary golden flop MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG last Friday, in order to put in our two cents. For those who don't know, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG was a Sondheim musical from the 80s that had everything it needed to succeed, at least creatively. After all, it was helmed by the same producer/director & composer team that created COMPANY, FOLLIES, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, and SWEENEY TODD, plus COMPANY's book writer, a group of hot young 20-somethings playing teen-somethings through 30-somethings in a concept created by the great playwrights Kaufman & Hart. History and a documentary or two tell us that things did not go as planned, and the musical died too soon after a long, complicated labor and faltering delivery. So, late in the year 1981 the curtain went up for 44 previews and went back down again after only 16 performances. Flop though it was, every few years this one will crop back up, either as staged readings, charity benefit offerings, or even full-on Off-Broadway revivals presented with varying degrees of success, and for (as Mosher dubbed them) Broadway fans, musical theater aficionados, Sondheimphiles, and Merrily superfans these presentations offered a glimpse of how all that wonderful music from the show's much more successful cast album fit into its original work of the theatre. You see, my dears, it's the music that keeps bringing everyone back to Mary, Charley & Franklin, and speaking of Mary - with MERRILY FROM CENTER STAGE Morrison has written her own story about her experience creating the MERRILY into a script she has very cleverly woven together with the show's original score, all reworked for her single voice to perform.

This one-woman revival, revisit, docu-cabaret, post-apocalyptic tour... or whatever you may want to call it... is pretty darn terrific because she is pretty darn terrific. Her voice still has a clarion ring to it, her diminutive stature, flaming red locks, and absolute command of the stage rivet the eyes and ears of all in the house for the full 75-ish minutes that 54 Below allows per set. Also, Mosher was 100% right when he called this a piece of theatre rather than a cabaret act. The first thing one notices in her performance is that Ann Morrison has a script. This wonderfully professional singing actress interacts with her audience from within that script as a storyteller performing her book and Sondheim's score... all by her lonesome. Much like her character Mary, who was the guide to the audience, making commentary to take them along with the story, AM tells the tale of the ups and downs of the process and the personnel that came to rely on her broad shoulders, creative input, and moral support without ever noticing what the pressures of it all were doing to her in the real-life drinking and weight-gain departments. These poignant personal moments of near crack-ups from self-doubt left everyone at 54 Below wanting to hear more about the cause and effects on an actor trying to find the eye of a crushing storm in order to do her work and keep her damn job - a Sword of Damocles that hangs over the heads of all actors in the best of times. As she says, "The older you get the better you understand Sondheim." Along with the production changes that were in and out and back in again but different, there were also technical snafus that sped by, almost bringing her to her knees, which was the lead-in to her rendition of the originally multi-voiced OPENING DOORS now sung solo with the lady taking on all the parts, a number that had this writer leaning forward with breathless anticipation and awe, forgetting to take any notes other than a WOW scribbled on the setlist.

Now, to pull a quote from my boss man himself, "This is not cabaret. This is theater ... as long as there are Broadway fans, musical theater aficionados, Sondheimphiles, and Merrily superfans, Ann Morrison can present this piece of musical storytelling ... anywhere," and herein lies the truth about this particular piece of theatre. Bobby must state categorically that we are in full agreement with Mosher's review of Morrison's musical play, but her show, for the moment, is still, by and large, a story for those deeply entrenched in "The Biz" of The Broadway, either as "aficionados" or those "in-the-know." It's true that there are TONS of us theatre nerds who will buy a ticket if it should ever sit down for a theatrical run, but for Morrison to really succeed with it, we would offer that a bit more material is needed, not only to make it a satisfying night in the theatre but to develop her own self-written-character. In short, more Ann sprinkled on top of the MERRILY sundae will give the Joneses from down the block (who might not be "in-the-know") someone to gravitate to because of what she is going through. It's all there, it should just be expanded a tiny bit. We would also offer that, for those ubiquitous Joneses, Morrison can take more time to give more MERRILY and BROADWAY context with a, "You don't know this about putting together a new musical, but..." or a "You don't know this about Merrily, but..." or a "You don't know this about Sondheim and Prince, but..." so that she and her well-written script bring everyone up to speed as she goes along. It's not a lot of new stuff that she needs and she is certainly engaging enough to carry everyone through as she educates, jokes, and tells her story going from "You don't know" all the way to her last line... "Now you know."

Telling a cracking good story is really all that matters in ANY piece of theatre and this one about battles lost and won and lost is just that. All it needs to do is take those darling Joneses along for the ride a bit more because, with MERRILY FROM CENTER STAGE, Ann Morrison really does have something. We certainly do hope that this one will have more life out there in the dark because it deserves to be seen, and so, we give this first venture our rousing ...

4 Out Of 5 Rainbows

Keep Up With All Things Ann Morrison On Her WebbySite: HERE

Photos from the original run of MERRILY FROM CENTER STAGE by Stephen Mosher

54 Below has swelegant shows to see - check out their calendar HERE.

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