Skip to main content

Sondheim: "Merrily We Roll Along"

 I'm cautiously interested in the new Broadway-bound "Merrily We Roll Along." I've seen this show three times, and I buy into the received wisdom: stunning score, one of the all-time great overtures, who cares about these three middle-aged dopes?


One thing that "Merrily" does especially well, in any version, is to narrate a story of unrequited love. This theme consistently puts wind in Sondheim's sails--whether he is describing Desiree in "Night Music," Sally in "Follies," Mrs. Lovett in "Sweeney," John Hinkley in "Assassins." But the love theme is really special in "Merrily."

Sondheim's mentor, Oscar Hammerstein, would famously stuff a Second Act with reprised numbers. The reprise would tie a little bow around a story. Liesl von Trapp flirts in Act One; in Act Two, using the Liesl melody, Maria delivers a gooey sermon about the virtues of waiting before sex. Nettie ends one part of "Carousel" by comforting a grieving widow. In Act Two, the comfort melody becomes a kind of valedictory speech at a high-school graduation.

Fiendishly, Sondheim resists the urge to comfort anyone. His "reprise" of his big love song is much darker and more upsetting than its original version. The reprise describes the bitter end of love: "I'll die day after day after day....till the days go by." The "first" version is a celebration of the start of love: "It only gets simpler and freer and richer and deeper....It can't get much better much longer...."

We're asked to look at one line in two ways; if you're hounded by the ghost of your lost love, then it's sad to say, "You're somehow a part of my life....and it looks like you'll stay....." The words create a different mood if a bride is singing them to her groom at the altar.

A final magic trick: For a long while, we've sensed that the character Mary is a mess. But it's not until late in the evening that a "flashback" shows the source of the problem: Mary has secretly loved her uninterested friend, Franklin, for the entirety of her adult life. Sondheim confirms this in the most artful and startling way--through music--and he makes the "Les Miserables" love triangle seem like child's play.

For these reasons, of course I'll see "Merrily" once again. My (still-guarded) hopes are high.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
3 comments
Read more

The Death of Bergoglio

  It's frustrating for me to hear Bergoglio described as "the less awful pope"--because awful is still awful. I think I get fixated on ideas of purity, which can be juvenile, but putting that aside, here are some things that Bergoglio could have done and did not. (I'm quoting from a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church.) He could levy the harshest penalty, excommunication, against a dozen or more of the most egregious abuse enabling church officials. (He's done this to no enablers, or predators for that matter.) He could insist that every diocese and religious order turn over every record they have about suspected and known abusers to law enforcement. Francis could order every prelate on the planet to post on his diocesan website the names of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric. (Imagine how much safer children would be if police, prosecutors, parents and the public knew the identities of these potentially dangerous me...
1 comment
Read more

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic.  She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...
1 comment
Read more