Merrily We Roll Along
Bailiwick Repertory
I admit that I’ve contributed to the “critical consensus” Barnes dismissed: reviewing Apple Tree Theatre’s 1993 production of the revised version of Merrily, I criticized the script as “full of moralistic cliches about selling out,” saying that the show’s major draw was Sondheim’s music. But Porchlight Theatre’s superb new production has brushed away my doubts about the script and made me appreciate even more the score’s remarkable richness. Most important, this eloquent, deeply felt, finely crafted revival reveals that together the text and songs form an intricately structured, consistently inventive, surprisingly appealing and moving work. At the performance I attended, the audience ranged from die-hard Sondheim fans to casual, even novice theatergoers, including a substantial number of teenagers (a demographic group generally ignored by theaters but one that the Athenaeum’s marketing staff has conscientiously targeted). Athenaeum producer Fred Solari insists that the kids at last Sunday’s matinee had actually paid for their tickets, sensibly arguing that it’s counterproductive to comp kids in because they’re less likely to care about the show. In any case, these young viewers seemed riveted and amused by a musical that spoke to them directly and intelligently about such themes as midlife crises and artists staying true to their vision.
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What the Porchlight crew has done is to find the frailty and fallibility in each of the show’s principal characters. Frank, played by Charlie Clark, is no mere heel but a man torn by conflicting needs and impulses who’s led down a road he comes to regret traveling. Charley–played by Stephen Rader, whose lyrical, thoughtfully slow rendition of the delicate pop ballad “Good Thing Going” is the show’s musical high point–is not only the voice of unflagging idealism but an impractical obsessive whose anger at Frank drives his friend away. (He’s also possibly in love with Frank, or so this production ambiguously suggests–an example of how Stearns and his cast have mined the script for every subtextual implication.) And Mary, the aspiring novelist turned cynical critic–played by Suzanne Genz, who stepped capably into the role after Stearns’s original choice, Mary Beth Thiels, was sidelined by a sudden illness–is a lost soul whose escalating alcoholism, fueled by her unrequited passion for Frank, both corrupts her gift as a writer and acts as an excuse for that loss (the character is obviously patterned on Dorothy Parker). Gussie, Beth, and Joe are less richly textured roles, but the actors–Karen Doern, Julie Cardia, and Christopher Moore respectively–play them to the hilt, making every contradictory intention crystal clear. Robert G. Smith’s inventive yet simple set supports the unorthodox narrative structure, and choreographer Samantha Fitschen’s dances are as quirky as the music that drives them. But identifying individual contributions is almost beside the point: what makes Porchlight’s Merrily We Roll Along so extraordinary is the bond the whole company feels with the material.
Foster is as recognizably modern in his sufferings as his songs are quintessentially part of their era. It’s not hard to see what has drawn Biele–whose past credits include Vanguards: 8 Stories of Life Before Liberation, a 1997 docudrama about gay life in Chicago before the Stonewall riots–to Foster as a dramatic subject. And with Foster’s alternately lovely and lively music as a bonus, Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts has the potential for powerful, offbeat musical theater.
