"Merrily" will return to New York City next year. It will get a major off-Broadway production; it recently had a very "buzzy" production in Chicago. In another musical, "Title of Show," young writers say, "I'd rather be nine people's favorite thing than a hundred people's ninth-favorite thing." If you're not a Sondheim addict, stop here.
Some thoughts on "Merrily."
-This is a reworking of "Follies." I don't know if Sondheim has said that explicitly. But: It's a story of unrequited love. In both "Follies" and "Merrily," a woman is in love, and the chilly, successful man center-stage doesn't love her back. "Suffer into truth": Unrequited love is still love. It still changes people. Both Mary, in "Merrily," and Sally, in "Follies," have their illusions shattered. They are wide-eyed, at first; they become sadder-but-wiser. Both shows also have a ghostly quality. In "Follies," the ghost of Ben's former self (and Sally's former self, and so on) flits about the stage; Phyllis even sings about the war she is fighting against her former self (as her former self watches near the wings). The ending of "Merrily" is so haunting because the young idealistic people on the roof seem spectral; we know what they will "grow" into, how far they will fall. Disappointment and pain: A night on Broadway!
-It's striking to me just how often Sondheim returns to the idea of unrequited love. We have these two shows, but we also have Mrs. Lovett's feelings for the frosty Sweeney, Fosca's weird Giorgio obsession, Dot wringing her hands over Georges, a lunatic hoping for Jodi Foster's attention, little girls in both "Gypsy" and "A Little Night Music" longing for some warmth from their self-absorbed mothers. If we wanted some cheap psychology, we could say that Sondheim's own tortured feelings toward a shut-off Mama--"Foxy" Sondheim--are at work here. I doubt Sondheim would sign on for that reading.
-To me, Mary is the most gripping part of "Merrily." We see her at a party, when she is washed up and embittered; asked, "What do you do?" she says, "I drink." And: "No. What do you *really* do?" Well: "I *really* drink." Mary struggles to keep her "old friends" together: "Here's to us! Who's like us? Damn few!" She's stunned by what time can do: "One day: chums, having a laugh a minute. One day comes, and they're a part of your lives." She gets entangled in a fight about what friendship means: "Old friends do leave their brands on you, but old friends shouldn't compete..."
-Mary also gets the big piece of wrenching melodrama, toward the end of the evening. Sondheim has narrated a bitter divorce, from the point of view of the boring sort-of-actress Beth: "I just go on thinking and sweating and cursing and crying and turning and reaching and waking and dying." Now, as Sondheim moves closer to the past, he shows Beth's falling in love, and this is done by means of the same melody: "It only gets better and stronger and deeper and nearer..." And, in a final coup, Sondheim reveals Mary's heartbreak: As the lovers sing upstage, in their own little world, Mary addresses the audience, devastated: "I'll die day after day after day after day....till the days go by..." This is on par with "Dreamgirls," when the thinner, cheerier singers take Effie's pain and rework it as a light disco number. It is really that effective and startling.
-Miscellany. There's footage of Sondheim giving himself a pep talk before writing "Our Time." "I will need to try to get back in that mindset." To me, the lyrics seem to refer to "West Side Story." "Someday a place for us..." "Someday just began..." "Something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon..." ""Feel the flow, feel what's happening. We're what's happening..." Also, this is the show where Sondheim draws directly from his own experience, in the great number "Opening Doors": We have an officious producer asking for something a bit more Richard Rodgers-ish, and we have the young composer writing something a bit "Saturday Night"-esque. ("Who wants to live in New York? Who wants the worries, the heat, the dirt, the noise?") Lastly, "Merrily" has the remote, emotionally tone-deaf artist center-stage--but it lacks the heart of "Sunday in the Park." "Sunday" is sort of like a "Merrily" rewrite: It's Franklin, again, but now Franklin (Georges) is a bit more passionate and tortured and "deep." That has to be deliberate. Anyway, hold your breath for "Merrily"! If you've made it this far in the piece, I want to hear your thoughts on this strange and divisive moment in Sondheim's career.
Some thoughts on "Merrily."
-This is a reworking of "Follies." I don't know if Sondheim has said that explicitly. But: It's a story of unrequited love. In both "Follies" and "Merrily," a woman is in love, and the chilly, successful man center-stage doesn't love her back. "Suffer into truth": Unrequited love is still love. It still changes people. Both Mary, in "Merrily," and Sally, in "Follies," have their illusions shattered. They are wide-eyed, at first; they become sadder-but-wiser. Both shows also have a ghostly quality. In "Follies," the ghost of Ben's former self (and Sally's former self, and so on) flits about the stage; Phyllis even sings about the war she is fighting against her former self (as her former self watches near the wings). The ending of "Merrily" is so haunting because the young idealistic people on the roof seem spectral; we know what they will "grow" into, how far they will fall. Disappointment and pain: A night on Broadway!
-It's striking to me just how often Sondheim returns to the idea of unrequited love. We have these two shows, but we also have Mrs. Lovett's feelings for the frosty Sweeney, Fosca's weird Giorgio obsession, Dot wringing her hands over Georges, a lunatic hoping for Jodi Foster's attention, little girls in both "Gypsy" and "A Little Night Music" longing for some warmth from their self-absorbed mothers. If we wanted some cheap psychology, we could say that Sondheim's own tortured feelings toward a shut-off Mama--"Foxy" Sondheim--are at work here. I doubt Sondheim would sign on for that reading.
-To me, Mary is the most gripping part of "Merrily." We see her at a party, when she is washed up and embittered; asked, "What do you do?" she says, "I drink." And: "No. What do you *really* do?" Well: "I *really* drink." Mary struggles to keep her "old friends" together: "Here's to us! Who's like us? Damn few!" She's stunned by what time can do: "One day: chums, having a laugh a minute. One day comes, and they're a part of your lives." She gets entangled in a fight about what friendship means: "Old friends do leave their brands on you, but old friends shouldn't compete..."
-Mary also gets the big piece of wrenching melodrama, toward the end of the evening. Sondheim has narrated a bitter divorce, from the point of view of the boring sort-of-actress Beth: "I just go on thinking and sweating and cursing and crying and turning and reaching and waking and dying." Now, as Sondheim moves closer to the past, he shows Beth's falling in love, and this is done by means of the same melody: "It only gets better and stronger and deeper and nearer..." And, in a final coup, Sondheim reveals Mary's heartbreak: As the lovers sing upstage, in their own little world, Mary addresses the audience, devastated: "I'll die day after day after day after day....till the days go by..." This is on par with "Dreamgirls," when the thinner, cheerier singers take Effie's pain and rework it as a light disco number. It is really that effective and startling.
-Miscellany. There's footage of Sondheim giving himself a pep talk before writing "Our Time." "I will need to try to get back in that mindset." To me, the lyrics seem to refer to "West Side Story." "Someday a place for us..." "Someday just began..." "Something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon..." ""Feel the flow, feel what's happening. We're what's happening..." Also, this is the show where Sondheim draws directly from his own experience, in the great number "Opening Doors": We have an officious producer asking for something a bit more Richard Rodgers-ish, and we have the young composer writing something a bit "Saturday Night"-esque. ("Who wants to live in New York? Who wants the worries, the heat, the dirt, the noise?") Lastly, "Merrily" has the remote, emotionally tone-deaf artist center-stage--but it lacks the heart of "Sunday in the Park." "Sunday" is sort of like a "Merrily" rewrite: It's Franklin, again, but now Franklin (Georges) is a bit more passionate and tortured and "deep." That has to be deliberate. Anyway, hold your breath for "Merrily"! If you've made it this far in the piece, I want to hear your thoughts on this strange and divisive moment in Sondheim's career.
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