merrily we roll along review
this particular little foray back into broadway occured through a series of unfortunate accidents. it all started when i watched this broadway stunt casting video randomly while trying to avoid my GIS lab that was probably due the same evening. avoiding schoolwork takes me places i wouldn't go with a gun. Like where i am right now ! writing a review of a musical when i have an environmental science exam in exactly 48 hours that i've only barely started studying for! onwards!
stunt casting video led to me dragging everyone (mei) down with me watching daniel radcliffe's performance in how to succeed in business without really trying because the "brotherhood of men" number is like baby sensory video to me. from there i was recommended the "old friends" music video and it just spiraled from there. and so at 9:44pm on sunday, october 6th, i was officially invested.
brief merrily plot & history
merrily is infamous for being one of sondheim's failures. just a total flop. everyone hated it. it only ran for like 8 shows or something. granted, it's a difficult show to execute, which is made apparent by the fact that it took almost half a century for someone to perfect it.
the first pitfall of the show is that it's told in reverse chronological order. i literally don't think you can enjoy the show without knowing this in advance or you'd just sit there confused the entire time. the show itself traces the history of franklin shepard and his two friends, charley kringas & mary flynn. the beginning of the show is the end of their friendship in 1977, when frank finally alienates mary and is finally alone, cheating on his second wife, and wondering how it all went wrong. the end of the show is when the three of them meet in 1957. the 20 years in between follows frank as he becomes successful and slowly begins to abandon his friends, his dreams, and his convictions.
between the first show in the 80s and now, there have been about 9 notable productions. i'm going to focus on the latest (2023), but also on some of the earlier ones, especially because i have MANY thoughts about the 2013 west end production and i enjoy some of the recordings of the 2002 kennedy center version. smiles.
2023 broadway revival
let's all say thank you maria friedman for working to get this show to make sense since 1992. talk about commitment. this production stars jonathan groff as frank, daniel radcliffe as charley, and lindsay mendez as mary. when i say they are phenomenal in these roles you should take me with a grain of salt because i never watch musicals but. well i think they did great okay. their press together is also like catnip to me, the chemistry between the three of them is crazy and it seems like they're genuinely quite close. they both participated in lindsay's wedding so you know, take that as you will. i'm not really one to get involved in the personal lives of celebrities, but for this show in particular i think it's quite sweet to see because the story would just be kind of impossible to pull off if you didn't care about each other at least a little.
the acting choices vary from show to show of course, and one of my favorite divergent choices is mary pinching charley's cheeks in the "old friends (reprise)." they're very endearing to me and you kind of feel for frank despite it all. jonathan groff is a notoriously spitty singer which is funny to know while you're watching the recordings because you can really tell. the story itself is very human and probably resonates personally with everyone who watches it. the grief of losing close friends. trying to understand the drift, the signs, making sense of the implosion of the relationship are all things that most people have gone through and feel familiar with in some type of way. i think it's rare for a story to be told in this manner about friends. socially, romantic relationships are prioritized over friendships which is why they are afforded more stories that scrutinize how they go wrong.
of course, it's not a musical without some romantical drama. this musical in particular is kind of unbelievable on that front because mary is lovesick over frank and the character was apparently named after a woman who was in love with sondheim but whose affections were unrequited because. well. he was gay. interesting addition guys!
Many, including Mary Rodgers in her recently published posthumous memoir, Shỵ, note that the musical's character Mary Flynn is named Julia Glenn in the Kaufman and Hart play. Prince, Sondheim, and Furth renamed this character (who is in long-unrequited love with a composer) for their friend Mary (whom they knew was in long-unrequited love with Stephen Sondheim), and this certainly suggests that there might be some of Mary Rodgers in Mary Flynn.
speaking of which, the subtext between charley and frank is kind of ridiculous but so so fun. literally love them. and they love each other! i'm a big fan of relationships that toe the line between platonic and romantic and remain ambigious which i know a lot of people don't care for but it's just kind of entertaining to me.
frank and charley are a specifically devastating example of this for me though. it transcends even impacting their friendship and spills into their working relationship (good thing going), and it's not enough to keep them together but it's enough for charley to have an incredibly public freakout slash confession of love (franklin shepard inc) #TO ME. frank is a serial cheater and an unscrupulous partner both romantically and in the context of creating with charley (he composes, charley writes) (they're collaborators. i collabor him and he collabors me). frank progessively, pragmatically, abandons his dreams of changing the world or even contributing to it in any meaningful way while charley presses on in his efforts to make a difference, willfully, unbendingly (charley is a hothead. charley won't bend! charley is a friend....). mary serves as a kind of objective mediator between the two of them but remains woefully underutilized. she's left in the worst shape after the friendship dissolves, because while frank and charley are succeeding in their own, separate ways, she's teetered into alcoholism and a dubious career as a critic. the affection that exists between the three of them is slowly undermined as frank claws his way into the fame and wealth he believes he deserves.
(these next parts are poorly edited excerpts from me talking at my friends on discord so please excuse the shift in voice)
frank's trajectory is interesting to consider in relation to the women he attaches himself to. in a really horrible way i think that his first wife, beth, and her parents and their very valid fear of poverty were the beginning of his corruption because before meeting beth, frank's priorities in his art aren't grounded in their monetary value. before, it was really about getting the message out but it's a crucial scene that mary speaks to beth's parents about his work and tries to convince them that he'll be successful and wealthy enough at SOME POINT to support his wife. later, beth comments that she wants to be rich as long as they've been poor and then after that how she introduces herself as the breadwinning wife and how excited she is about the show being a hit mostly because it will bring in money. i don't know enough to bring any kind of deeper, historical & economical context to this but i think that frank internalizes it in the wrong direction and completely sells out. he gives up his friends and his values and ambitions in the name of richness. and not just wealth to him its about status and living rich. he values the connections and the functions and the luxury that comes with the cash... even at the expense of his best friends.
class & wealth is pretty blatantly what creates the conflict between charley and frank. they drifted because charley stuck to his values & was still successful without being a sellout but frank was his perfect creative match and we can assume that despite winning a pulitzer and the impact he made, he never got to execute the musical of his dreams because he was supposed to do it with frank. whereas frank sold out and had success and an outwardly successful life but would never be remembered becuse he gave up on delivering anything with any kind of emotional or social/political resonance. he just took the quick way out of poverty which is understandable but in the process he gave up both his AND charley's shared dreams and now lives both the most privileged and yet unremarkable life. he's drifting, he has no real family, he cheats on the wife he cheated with on his last wife, he doesn't speak to his son, and he's completely ostracized possibly the only people who would have been there for him if his lifestyle weren't completely irreconcilable with their values and their friendship.
he was only an exciting composer because of charley written vision. their excellence was contingent on their working together and this doesnt even get into the relationship dynamics that inform their art. or at least charley's side of it, specifically "good thing going."
coughs. okay but let's talk about "franklin shepard inc." first. this is the song that destroys frank and charley's relationship once and for all. within the narrative it's essentially a televised nervous breakdown, a desperate plea for frank's care and attention, and a thinly veiled confession disguised in the emphasis on "that's the guy i love." you understand. i'm only casually invested in the romantic possibilities for fictional relationships (unless you happen to be newt and hermann from pacific rim), but frank and charley's relationship is defined by their love for each other and how much can be sacrificed at the alter of material gain. charley only loved frank before he became franklin shepard inc and wants that frank back so bad. but i digress.
and... friendship is like a garden. you have to water it and tend it. and care about it. and you know what? i miss it. and i want it back.
in terms of which version most realistically depicts a televised breakdown i really like damien humbley's portrayal. i think his frank is also a lot more expressive which really lends itself to the scene, whereas jonathan groff pretty much just stares, stunned, into the middle distance through the entirety of the 2023 version.
"good thing going" makes me equally unwell because, as mei put it, "its either youre gay or this is foreshadowing from franks perspective." and you'd be hard pressed to explain why charley's lines are foreshadowing for frank.
and if i wanted too much was that such a mistake at the time? you never wanted enough, all right tough, i don't make that a crime. and while it's going along, you take for granted some love will wear away...
on that note, i'm going to cut myself off and i'll keep going when i make this stupid liferuining show its own stupid page.