Merrily We Roll Along (1981)

Like Sunday in the Park with George, which came along just three years later, this Sondheim show is a meditation on both the pure creation and commercial parsing of art.  While Sunday transplants Sondheim’s feelings about creating and selling art onto a pointillist canvas, Merrily We Roll Along stays in more familiar territory:  songwriting for musical theatre.  Interesting that he wrote two thematically-similar musicals so close together (and, it’s worth noting, on the heels of a very successful ‘70s, out of which came Follies, A Little Night Music, and Sweeney Todd, among others.  Maybe Sondheim’s growing prominence necessitated a little composing therapy?)

Before The Last 5 Years made it cool, Merrily We Roll Along played with a nonlinear narrative, telling the story of composer Frank Shepard in reverse.  We open long after the talented artist has sold out and “gone Hollywood,” alienating the friends, collaborators, and lovers who supported him on the way up.  The show climbs slowly out of this descent, stretching back to Frank’s idealistic, optimistic roots, and in between lie all the tiny compromises and mounting tensions that led to his professional success and personal ruin.

As with many Sondheim shows, the score is the biggest star.  He’s written way too many incredible shows for this one to be a favorite, but that’s not to sell it short.  “Old Friends” is a terrific ditty, “Our Time” is gorgeous, and “Good Thing Going,” Frank’s in-show composition with his lyricist partner Charley, is 100% believable as the captivating, liftable number that puts them on the map (shades of “Send in the Clowns?”)  Likewise, there are some fantastic lyrics.  In addition to the aforementioned songs, “Franklin Shepard, Inc.,” Charley’s tour-de-force airing of his and Frank’s dirty laundry, is especially noteworthy – it’s a classic Sondheim mile-a-minute song that sounds, melodically and lyrically, exactly like what it is, an agitated man falling to pieces on live television.

If I have any major problems with Merrily We Roll Along, it’s the same problem I have with many non-sci-fi stories told out of order (looking at The Last 5 Years again;) these stories tend to end badly, and, with the narratives turned on their heads, we see those endings first and work our way back to happier times.  However, even the happiest, most hopeful final scenes are tainted by the foreknowledge of everything we’ve already seen that will go wrong in these characters’ lives.  Not that it can’t be effective – after hearing “Not a Day Goes By” sung bitterly at the breakup of Frank’s marriage, it packs a hard emotional punch to hear it later in the show, earlier in time, as a wedding vow – but the dramatic irony can make the story feel even sadder than it would have been chronologically.

Warnings

Language, alcohol/drug references, and thematic elements.