Merrily We Roll Along, And Along, And Along--But Are We There Yet?

Cast of Encores! Production of 'Merrily We Roll Along.' Photo by Joan Marcus

Cast of Encores! Production of 'Merrily We Roll Along.' Photo by Joan Marcus  

Merrily We Roll Along holds a special place in the hearts of many a Stephen Sondheim fan. In most cases, my own included, this emotional connection is tied to the original Broadway cast recording, particularly since productions have been few and far between ever since its unfortunate 16-performance run back in 1981.

Now it’s back, at least for a few performances (ending on Sunday), kicking off the new season of the Encores! series at the newly (and beautifully) refurbished City Center. 

The production has a lot going for it, including solid performances by the hastily-prepared cast and the musicianship of the orchestra—under Rob Berman’s sure hand—playing Jonathan Tunick’s reworked orchestrations (reworked, since some songs have been excised and others added since 1981). 

No matter what one might think of the show itself,  Merrily We Roll Along still has its share of “hummable-mummable” songs, including Old Friends, Not A Day Goes By, and that wonderful ode to youthful optimism, Our Time. 

Rather than go into the strengths and weaknesses of the Encores! production, however,  I’d like to jump into the debate that has stalked Merrily We Roll Along since its inception.   That is, what went wrong, and have years of tinkering fixed it?

The problems with the original production, which I did not see, have frequently been attributed to the youthfulness and relative inexperience of the cast, needing to play characters who start out as middle aged and go back in time 20 years as the play progresses.  That is the conceit of the show—a backward look at a life of compromises and digressions from the idealism of youth, underscored by a betrayal of marriage and the loss of deeply-rooted friendships. 

I don’t pretend to know how to make it work, but it does seem to me that Merrily We Roll Along takes a huge risk by running its story backwards (as did the not-terribly-successful 1934 Kaufmann and Hart play on which it is based). 

That’s because you’ve got to show a moment of regret at the start, and then ask the audience to hold that thought as you build an emotionally resonating history, so that the viewer will ultimately agree that this has, indeed, been a life worthy of regret. 

You could go the way of Ebenezer Scrooge, I suppose.  However, rather than Dickens, I would suggest that the world of opera—not unheard of in a conversation about Sondheim’s oeuvre—for other models.  

Give us, for example, the beginning of Faust at the front end, and the beginning of La Bohème at the other.   

Unfortunately, instead of Faust—filled with regret near the end of his life—we  have Frankin Shepherd, a man in his 40s, a successful movie producer, whose “crime” is that he veered from a path as a successful writer of musicals in order to pursue other interests. Hardly the stuff of grand tragedy.

And at the other end, we have what we are told is a binding friendship among Frank, Charley, and Mary, and a great love between Frank and Beth. 

But unlike the brilliantly-depicted camaraderie in La Bohème, the relationship among the triumvirate in Merrily We Roll Along is never convincingly significant.  Yes, Sondheim has given us the songs Opening Doors and Our Time to suggest such a deep friendship, but these are generational rather than personal anthems, and we are asked to believe their unbreakable bond is forged in a moment on the roof.  Love at first sight may have worked for West Side Story, but it doesn’t work for Merrily We Roll Along. 

The same could be said for Frank and Beth’s great love.  A marriage that ends in divorce is unfortunate, but it is rather too common among Frank’s set to be considered a tragic turn of events.  Actually, Frank’s estrangement from his son might be worth pursuing, but it is barely mentioned.

So we have it.  The world has presumably lost a successful composer of musicals, and even if we choose to believe Charley’s contention that “no one does it better,” Frank’s choice of a direction for his life is his to make.  Yet, we see precious little regret coming from him—only from Charley, his former writing partner, and from Mary, who has spent her life mooning over Frank.  It’s a shame, I guess, but it fails to fulfill the promise of the show’s premise. 

And so we have it.  I, for one, will go back to listening to the original cast recording and envisioning a different production of Merrily We Roll Along than the one we have actually been given.


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'Follies' Is Back on Broadway for a Limited Run: Do Not Miss!

Here’s a bit of advice.

If you’ve never seen Follies, James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim’s magnum opus of a musical, get ye hence to the revival now in previews at the Marquis Theater.  And thank your lucky stars that you have been given this opportunity to see a full-blown production with a cast of 41 accompanied by a 28-piece orchestra performing Jonathan Tunick’s wonderful orchestrations. 

And, you know what, even if you’ve seen it before, get ye hence to the Marquis Theater.  If nothing else, you’ll love debating the casting and directing decisions, for Follies will forever stand beside Leonard Bernstein’s Candide in never offering up the complete and definitive version.  How could it, when every audience member knows with ego-centric certainty who should play each role and how each song should be performed?

That may be Follies’ greatest strength, the fact that it can be interpreted and reinterpreted from production to production.  Even this one, which comes to New York after a successful and well-received run at Washington’s D. C.’s Kennedy Center, made the transfer having undergone a good deal of tinkering on its way up I-95.    

Back in 1971, when Follies opened on Broadway, The New York Times critic Clive Barnes gave it a mixed and somewhat smarmy review, but he provided a succinct plot summary that I could not hope to match, so I will quote him:  “Years ago, in 1941, Buddy loved Sally, Sally loved Ben, Phyllis loved Ben, and Ben loved Ben.  Buddy married Sally, Ben married Phyllis, but their marriages are not working out.”

The various meltdowns occur before our eyes during a one-time reunion of performers from “Weismann’s Follies,” who have come together 30 years later at the theater where they once shared the spotlight.  The theater, which is about to be torn down to make way for a parking lot, is haunted both by memories and by the ghosts of their former youthful selves, who sometimes lurk in the background, sometimes interact with the living, and sometimes compete directly for the audience’s attention.

This all may sound rather soap opera-ish, but it’s certainly real enough to Buddy, Ben, Phyllis, and, especially, to Sally, who has carried an unrequited torch for Ben for so long she can barely distinguish reality from fantasy.

As the four lost middle-aged souls struggle to exorcise their various demons, the rest of the cast members wander in and out, stopping to perform songs from their heyday, including such showstoppers as “Broadway Baby” and “I’m Still Here,” both of which have been performed and recorded by so many singers that it’s the rare audience member who hasn’t heard them before.  

Indeed, Follies could be considered to be a mini-version of Sondheim’s Greatest Hits.  In addition to these two powerhouse numbers, usually reserved for singers in late career, there are Sally’s songs, the romantic yet ironic “In Buddy’s Eyes” and the wrenching “Losing My Mind;” Ben and Sally’s soaring duet “Too Many Mornings;” and Phyllis’s scathing ”Could I Leave You?” all of which have established lives of their own beyond the stage.

OK.  Now comes the part where I get to discuss my own likes and dislikes about the production.   Know, however, that nothing I say is intended to keep you away from the Marquis.  Follies is a must-see show that serves as a touchstone between the musical theater history it tapped into and  the next generation of musicals that it influenced, including A Chorus Line just five years later.  (Michael Bennett co-directed, with Hal Prince, the original Follies before coming up with A Chorus Line).

Let me begin with some comments about casting.  The roles of Ben, Buddy, Phyllis, and Sally are played, respectively, by Ron Raines, Danny Burstein, Jan Maxwell, and Bernadette Peters.  I thought the gentlemen were fine, both strong singers and performers and both good fits for their characters.  Each does splendidly with his personal psychological breakdown number in the section of the show known as “Loveland,” a surrealistic re-creation of songs from the imagined Follies of long ago.


If I have any doubts, it is about the leading women.  I have come to envision a Phyllis as a goddess of shattering rage, especially with the delivery of her tour de force song, “Could I Leave You?” I have, for example, seen Donna Murphy perform this number with such toxic fury that I wanted to cringe beneath my seat and call 911. 


Jan Maxwell is a terrific actress, and she can sing well enough and dance (sort of), so that she can get by.  But she is not the Phyllis of my imagination.  Rather, she gives us a more complex characterization, one that lets us see her self-doubt and the last glimmer of love for her supercilious husband, who has kept her at arms-length for many years.  

There surely is room for such an interpretation; I just need to mull this one over a little more.

Then there is Bernadette Peters as Sally, a character who is emotionally complicated and who may be suffering from bipolar disorder.  We need to see Sally as someone whom Buddy has loved all of these years while being thoroughly frustrated by her obsession with Ben.

Sally is supposed to be unglamorous, a bit of a frump, someone who does not wish to stand out in a crowd despite her earlier career.  That’s a pretty tall order for Ms. Peters—not  because she is incapable of meeting the acting challenge, but because she is uniquely Bernadette Peters no matter what role she plays.  


In watching her perform, it seemed to me that she is still struggling to find the right mannerisms and tone for Sally.  And I am not entirely certain she is comfortable with the specific musical range required for Sally’s numbers. I know precious little about vocal technique, but in the performance I saw, she appeared to be reaching mightily for notes that were below her comfort zone, and there was altogether too much vibrato in her singing.  

By way of comparison, consider the incomparable Barbara Cook, who, in her 80s, can still perform “In Buddy’s Eyes” and “Losing My Mind” like no other.   So, here’s something else I need to reconcile in my mind. 

Of the rest of the cast, I liked the younger versions of the four leads, as played by Lora Lee Gayer (Sally), Kirsten Scott (Phyllis), Christian Delcroix (Buddy), and Nick Verina (Ben).  They did a credible job of “ghosting” their older counterparts, and of performing their numbers in the “Loveland” sequence—“You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow” and “Love Will See Us Through.”

Those playing the former Weismann Follies performers also did well as they took turns center stage offering up their featured numbers, but only one stood out as being a flesh-and-blood character. That was Susan Watson as Emily.  Ms. Watson still has the gamine looks and the lithe moves of a dancer that made her seem genuine.  With the little she was given to do, she imbued her character with a poignant touch of age-borne forgetfulness and confusion that left a real impression that here was a true veteran of the long departed Follies.   

I'll tip my hat as well to Elaine Paige, who was apparently having trouble earlier on remembering the lyrics to “I’m Still Here.” In the performance I attended, she nailed it, sold it, and made it her own, leading to waves of sustained applause.  I also liked Jayne Houdyshell (“Broadway Baby”), largely because she seemed to be having such great fun just being there. 

I’ve got to say, I wasn’t overly thrilled with the costumes, wigs, and makeup—especially for the older women.  Surely former Follies performers would know how to dress, fix their hair, and have their makeup done for a reunion of this nature without looking like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

In any event, my quibbles are my own.  I encourage you to go see Follies and form your own judgment. This is being touted as a limited engagement, with tickets on sale only through January 1. Whatever its flaws, given the economics of Broadway, you're not likely to have the opportunity to see a large-scale production of Follies any time in the near future.  Next time might be with a cast of four playing all of the roles as well as the musical instruments. 

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A Little Night Music: Don't You Love Farce?

Little Night Music
Buzz Buzz Buzz
Who can do Armfeldt
Like Angie does?
Let’s go with Stritchie
Cuz Cuz Cuz
She’ll help us get through summer’s slump


With CZJ’s leaving
Bye bye bye
No one was grieving
Why why why
With Bernadette Peters
Standing by
We can get through summer’s slump

I cannot recall so much chatter around a production of a Broadway musical as has occurred with the current revival of A Little Night Music, with book by Hugh Wheeler and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

First there was the brouhaha about the production itself, yet another minimalist gift from London’s Menier Chocolate Factory (single drab set and minuscule orchestra). Then there was the noise about the celebrity casting of yet another movie star in a Broadway show, in this case Catherine Zeta-Jones in the lead role of Desirée Armfeldt, an actress longing to escape the “glamorous life” of her career and to settle down with the man who is the love of her life, not to mention the father of her daughter.

Anyway, the show opened in December of 2009 to mixed reviews, with the only unabashed kudos reserved for Angela Lansbury in the role of Madame Armfeldt, Desirée’s mother and a former highly successful courtesan who despairs at her daughter’s lack of skill in using men, as she herself had done, to assure her financial security.

At the 2010 Tony Awards, Ms. Zeta-Jones walked off with the prize for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, and it appeared that the show would come to a halt at the end of the two stars’ contracts in June of this year.

But then something most unusual happened, and the buzzing revved up again. Maybe the producers could find replacements with enough star power to keep the show running.

The rumor mill and wish lists churned out dozens of names, but two started showing up with greater frequency: Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch, both true stars of Broadway, and both with histories of performing in Sondheim shows (Peters in Sunday in the Park With George and Into the Woods; Stritch in Company).

The choice of Bernadette Peters was a no-brainer, pretty much on everyone’s short list for the role of Desirée. But brassy, raspy, tough-as-nails Elaine Stritch, in the role of the sophisticated, worldly Madame Armfeldt? Singing that most difficult of Sondheim’s numbers, Liaisons? Would she dare? Could she pull it off? Would she crash and burn?

Daily reports on A Little Night Music began to pour in when it reopened in July with the new stars. And yes, Ms. Peters immediately won everyone’s hearts. And, yes, it did seem that Ms. Stritch was showing signs of both crashing and burning—forgetting her lines, struggling with defining her character, driving some of her long-time fans to publicly call for her to step down or to use an assistive device (like the earpiece Ms. Lansbury used so that forgotten lines could be whispered as needed by someone backstage).

I did not see A Little Night Music with Ms. Zeta-Jones and Ms. Lansbury, nor had I been particularly interested. I saw the legendary original production back in 1973, with Glynis Johns as Desirée and Hermione Gingold in the role of Madame Armfeldt, and a later first-rate production in 1994 at Chicago’s Goodman Theater.

While I like the show, I felt that twice was enough; it would take something pretty special to get me to return for a third viewing.

And then they went and did do something special.

And so I went, waiting a couple of weeks for the new stars to settle in.

Here is my report:

Bernadette Peters is perfectly cast, lives up to all the high expectations, and gives a wonderful performance.

Elaine Stritch has made the role of Madame Armfeldt her own, and she has such a command of the stage that even her eccentricities, including her talk-through of Liaisons, work. I noticed one hesitation and a few scrambling of words the day I saw it, but neither interfered with the performance or pulled me out of the moment.

The rest of the cast is fine, if not extraordinary, and I can live with the minimalist set. I am glad that, with the exception of Henrik’s cello, we don’t have to see the actors double up as the musicians.

My one quibble has to do with Trevor Nunn’s directing. A Little Night Music, like a Chekhov play, deals with the follies of the young, the middle aged, and the elderly. These follies are fully expressed when the city folks head out for a weekend in the country. There is a lot of letting loose contained within the script, but the humor is, in my view, best performed in a manner that is arch and urbane.

Nunn, however, has opted for an exaggerated air of silliness, as if he had honed in on the line from Send In The Clowns: “don’t you love farce?” For my taste, there is way too much shtick and mugging and running around that threaten to undermine the production toward the end. Send in the clowns, indeed!

Still there is much to enjoy, and Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch help turn this revival of A Little Night Music into a truly memorable occasion. If, like me, you hesitated to see it in its Hollywood-Comes-To-Broadway version, now is your chance to see a couple of terrific veteran Broadway stars giving it their all. I wouldn't advise missing it.

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Song List from Sondheim Tribute

In response to a request, here is the list of songs in the order they were performed at the second of the two tribute concerts for Stephen Sondheim at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. I've heard nothing but gushing, glowing reports from those who were there. Similar events are scheduled for City Center and the Roundabout Theater, although at this time I do not have plans to attend.

Something’s Coming

We’re Gonna Be Alright

Don’t Laugh

Johanna

You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow

Love Will See Us Through

Too Many Mornings

The Road You Didn’t Take

It Takes Two

Growing Up

Finishing The Hat

Move On

Pretty Women

A Little Priest

Goodbye for Now (written for the movie ‘Reds’ and performed by two dancers from ABT)

So Many People

Beautiful Girls

The Ladies Who Lunch

Losing My Mind

Glamorous Life

Could I Leave You?

Not A Day Goes By

I’m Still Here

Sunday

Happy Birthday

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Sondheim at 80: All-Star Tribute with the NY Philharmonic

In this, the season of tributes to the glorious god of musical theater, Stephen Sondheim, it would be difficult to top the two days of concerts performed by the New York Philharmonic and a star-studded cast.

I attended the second of the two sold-out concerts in honor of Mr. Sondheim’s 80th birthday, which, fortunately for those who were shut out, were taped for airing on PBS’s Great Performances.

It was a memorable event, lovingly directed by longtime Sondheim aficionado and sometime actor Lonny Price (original cast, Merrily We Roll Along), with the Philharmonic smartly conducted by Paul Gemignani, long identified as Sondheim’s musical director. The program was hosted with grace and good humor by David Hyde Pierce, with a single guest hosting spot ceded to orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, another longtime Sondheim collaborator. With friends like these, Sondheim’s birthday celebration could not have been in better hands.

I’m not going to suggest that every single moment was one of sublime magic, but there was certainly enough that was to make for a richly rewarding evening. Some highlights for me:

•Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters performing “Move On” from Sunday in the Park with George. Both of them looked and sounded in top form as they recreated their performance from more than 25 years ago, from what to me is Sondheim’s richest, most emotional and romantic musical score. Patinkin also gave us a beautiful “Finishing the Hat” from Sunday.

•Patti LuPone, who always seems to be having such a wonderful time onstage, teamed with George Hearn and Michael Cerveris to peform “A Little Priest,” a wickedly fun number from Sweeney Todd: Mrs. Lovett with her two Sweeneys to play against. Hearn and Cerveris also offered up a chilling rendition of “Pretty Women,” climaxing with one Sweeney slitting the other’s throat.

•Patti again, doing an audacious performance of “The Ladies Who Lunch” from Company, right in front of Elaine Stritch, whose original rendition of the song is legendary.

•Elaine Stritch herself, at 85 and looking rather on the frail side, summoning up some great internal power to invest authentic meaning and voice for an ovation-garnering performance of “I’m Still Here” from Follies.

•Chip Zien and Joanna Gleason singing “It Takes Two” from Into The Woods, one of my favorite Sondheim shows. Ms. Gleason looked at Mr. Zien with a slightly startled expression as she sang the first words: “You’ve changed,” a nod to the more than two decades that have passed since they first sang that number on Broadway. It’s these subtle nuances that move a performance from the ordinary to the special. (Another such moment occurred in the aforementioned “The Ladies Who Lunch;” on the line: “Does anyone still wear a hat?” Ms. Stritch gave a little nod that directed our eyes to the cap she was wearing.)

While these were my personal “wow” moments, I’ve got to give high marks to operatic baritone Nathan Gunn, whose heart-melting rendition of “Johanna” from Sweeney Todd was the first number of the evening that made me sit up and take notice, and whose duet with Audra McDonald of “Too Many Mornings” from Follies was simply gorgeous. Also performing magnificently were such powerhouse hitters as Marin Mazzie, Laura Benanti, Victoria Clark, John McMartin, and the always-wonderful-to-see Donna Murphy, whose venomous rendition of “Could I Leave You?” from Follies was enough to give pause to every married man in the audience.

The last official song on the program was the moving choral masterwork, “Sunday” from Sunday in the Park, performed by a stageful of Broadway performers. It was followed with everyone singing “Happy Birthday” to the birthday boy himself, who came up on the stage from the audience to offer, in a voice choked with emotion, his heartfelt thanks. So much for the old image of Sondheim as an insular curmudgeon.

All in all, this was a special evening, a loving and fitting tribute to one of the all time greats!

During the show, I jotted down the song titles in the order in which they were performed. If I can’t wait for PBS to release a video of the event, I will create my own audio version by downloading the numbers onto my iPod.

Note: The photo of Stephen Sondheim comes from the Academy of Achievement, a Museum of Living History in Washington, D. C. Sondheim was inducted in 2005.

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