50 Favourite Musicals: 11: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (1981) (Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1981, Alvin Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1983, Bloomsbury Theatre, London

Productions seen: four
  
Score: Stephen Sondheim

Book: George Furth

Plot: Franklin Shepard is a successful composer and film producer but as he looks back over his 20 year career he can see how step-by-step his aspirations were lost along with his two best friends Charley Kingkas and Mary Flynn.

Five memorable numbers: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, OUR TIME. NOT A DAY GOES BY, GOOD THING GOING, OUR TIME

One show had to just lose out on the top 10 - how ironic it had to be MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.  After their previous show SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FEET STREET won eight Tony Awards and nine Drama Desk Awards, the partnership of composer Stephen Sondheim and producer / director Hal Prince were expected to come up with another smash hit.  But it was not to be... MERRILY lasted a mere 44 performances after a troubled rehearsal period where the original leading man and choreographer where replaced and audiences walked out, confused by the back-to-front plotline.  Prince's concept of a cast of teenage performers, all in sweatshirts and jeans, backfired and the resultant failure had a lasting effect on it's devastated young cast as well as Sondheim and Prince who would not work together again on a new work for 22 years.  The odd thing is that the seemingly revolutionary plot-twist of having the story told backwards originated in 1934 in a play of the same name by George S Kaufman and Moss Hart, which had also closed losing money - albeit with more performances.  It was neglected at Awards time too, MERRILY received a single Tony nomination for Best Musical Score - which lost to Maury Yeston's NINE.  The palpable sadness of that original production has remained, especially as that cast's recording of the score has kept the show alive down the years - remarkable considering they recorded it the day after they closed.  Since then MERRILY has gone on to be reclaimed as one of Sondheim's most remarkable scores - particularly as the usual criticism thrown at him that he is too cerebral to be emotional is made ridiculous by songs such as NOT A DAY GOES BY and GOOD THING GOING which are tear-triggers of the highest magnitude.  Sondheim's score ripples with great songs whose tunes appear throughout the show in different guises so you can track them seemingly down the years as Charley, Frank and Mary's lives change and grow apart.

I was lucky enough to see MERRILY's European premiere when the Guildhall School's production transferred to the small Bloomsbury Theatre two months after it was first staged at the school.  Ian Judge's wonderful production swept me away and made the show instantly one of my favourites.  Over the years as it's status has grown with every UK and US revival, Sondheim has revisited the score and added new numbers for Frank and Gussie, the musical star he marries, but for me the original score is the one I return to.  After the 1983 Guildhall show I had to wait 17 years until another London production at the Donmar.  Michael Grandage's production featured career-defining performances from Samantha Spiro as Mary, Daniel Evans as Charley and Julian Ovenden as Frank and won three Olivier Awards for Best Musical, Best Actress and Best Actor for Evans; sadly no West End transfer occurred.  That happened three years later when Maria Friedman's production at the Menier Chocolate Factory transferred to the Pinter Theatre for a few months.  While happy that this remarkable show was finally seen in a proper West End house I was less enthusiastic by Friedman's garish and broad production - it did however win the Olivier for Best Musical Revival. The latest news on MERRILY is that Richard Linklater has announced he will make a film of it with the absurd idea of filming it over 20 years so the characters can be seen to age properly... one is tempted to think of Olivier's line to Dustin Hoffman while he was holding up filming doing his Method shenanigans "Why don't you try acting?".

A much more poignant and telling film take on MERRILY is Lonny Price's wonderful documentary BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED from 2016.  Initially a film about the making of MERRILY and the impact of it's failure on it's young cast, Price - who was the original Charley - had remembered ABC News filming all of the audition and rehearsals for a segment in one of their news programme but when they were informed they had an investment in MERRILY they stopped the filming and put out a statement that the footage was destroyed.  However the original videotapes were finally tracked down and Price utilizes the footage to recreate the excitement of the young cast turn to bewilderment at it's failure to work despite Sondheim and Prince's best efforts.  The bigger themes of looking back to see what you gave up to live your dreams - or giving up your dreams to live - are as palpable as MERRILY itself - do hunt it out...

COMPANY at the Gielgud Theatre: Side By Side.. By Side

Constant Reader, as you will recall, I am wandering through my 50 favourite musicals elsewhere on this blog and Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking COMPANY from 1970 landed at #46.  It's not my favourite musical of his as you can see; don't get me wrong I love the score but I have found George Furth's book to be dated.  So how will Marianne Elliott's re-appraised and gender-flipped version work?

Um.. about the same really!  For all it's promised looking from a new angle at the show, it still left me loving the score and slightly enervated by the linking scenes.  Playwright George Furth had written a collection of one-act plays for mercurial actress Kim Stanley which were to be directed by Anthony Perkins... who showed them to his friend Stephen Sondheim... who showed them to Hal Prince who agreed that the short plays could be the basis of a new kind of musical where they could be solo scenes linked by a single character observing the action.  There is no word on how pissed Stanley or Perkins must have been to see their project side-lined.

So COMPANY was born: Robert is surprised on his 35th birthday by his close-knit group of friends, five sets of partnered couples.  As he attempts - and fails - to blow out his candles, he remembers occasions when he has been alone with the five couples when their happy facade showed cracks.  Ultimately Robert has to face that, for all his fear of commitment, "alone is not alive".  COMPANY was one of the first non-linear musicals and after mixed reviews out-of-town - Variety infamously said "As it stands now it's for ladies' matinees, homos and misogynists", it struck a zeitgeist-y moment on Broadway and won six Tony Awards, and has seen popular revivals since.

Director Marianne Elliott approached Sondheim with the idea of reworking the show so Robert is now Bobbi, a 35 year-old woman who, after concentrating on the goals of education and a career, finds herself in an emotional limbo.  Sondheim wasn't particularly excited by it but with his old adage "a revival can tinker but the original will always be there" he agreed for her to give it a go; it helped that he was a big fan of her work - indeed, when we first saw WAR HORSE at the National Theatre my attention was drawn to an elderly man a few row down from us on the aisle BLUBBING at the play's climax... it was Sondheim.

Elliott's vision certainly fits the musical's frame - with the implied idea that the biological clock is running too - and of course, in updating the material to include mobile phones and texting, there is also the opportunity to replace one of the couples for a gay couple and, to a less noticeable extent, swap another couple's roles: she is the provider, he is the house-husband.  Elliott's redrawn COMPANY succeeds more because of the production and ensemble rather than the actual material.  I have said how I think the linking scenes are the show's weakness and, again, I just found most of them - for all their modernizing - neither insightful or particularly humorous.  Furth's friends are a collectively unsympathetic lot to be honest and the book's flaws are all the more evident when they co-exist next to Sondheim's effortless wit and insight.

However, as I said, Marianne Elliott has attacked the show with such passion and focus that it is a pleasure to watch.  Helped by Neil Austin's bright neon framing for Bunny Christie's adjoining boxed sets, the show is an unexpected visual treat while at the same time, Sondheim's score sounds fantastic under musical director Joel Fram although having him and the orchestra perched above the set on a bridge is distracting and makes it look like they are sitting on Evita's balcony.  Liam Steel's choreography doesn't really move beyond quirky.

That I liked the production is established and it is the most cohesive vision of the musical I have seen but, for the life of me, I do not understand Marianne Elliott's obsession with Rosalie Craig, who as Bobbi, is the production's dead centre.

Rosalie Craig is a go-to actress for directors such as Elliott, Josie Rourke and Rufus Norris - I presume she takes direction well and doesn't get in the way of their concept-heavy approaches but from THE LIGHT PRINCESS to CITY OF ANGELS, from AS YOU LIKE IT to here in COMPANY she has turned in anonymous after anonymous leading performances.  She is certainly capable, with a pleasant singing voice - although it strains itself in the upper register - but she has zero charisma with no variance in tone - at no time did she surprise me onstage - which here is alarming as Robert / Bobbi is the glue that holds her the show together: at best Craig provides the Pritstick.

In scene after scene, my attention strayed to whoever else was on stage, no matter how good they were.  People might be saying "Let's see COMPANY, Marianne Elliott is directing it" not "Let's see COMPANY, Rosalie Craig is in it".  At one point I thought if only they had asked Cynthia Errivo... imagine what she could do with "Being Alive"?

As I said, it was easy to look through Craig to see some good performances: Mel Giedroyc was a delight as Sarah, forever in contest with husband Harry; it is a bit of stunt casting as her pulling power out-weighs her small role but she was great fun and well matched with Gavin Stokes as Harry who also sang the lovely "Sorry / Grateful" wonderfully.  The classic Sondheim tongue-twisting number "Getting Married Today" is sung by Jonathan Bailey - as Jamie, not Amy - and although he pitched it a little too hysterical to catch all the lyrics it played well to the peanut gallery. Far better was the scene that follows when Jamie's paranoia leads him to break-up with his partner Paul, only to change his mind when Bobbi suggests they marry each other instead; Bailey and Alex Gaumond made a very good partnership.

There was also good work from Bobbi's three lingering boyfriends: Richard Fleeshman was a revelation as the air-head air pilot Andy who wrestles to leave Bobbi to fly to "Barcelona" while Matthew Seadon-Young was very good as Theo, the lover that somehow got away; sadly George Blagden couldn't do much with his big number "Another Hundred People" but that was probably due to the distracting choreography behind him, but the three combined well to deliver a great "You Could Drive A Person Crazy".

 

And the bitter cherry on the cake is Patti LuPone as Joanne, Bobbi's older and cynical friend, now on her third - possibly fourth - husband, who finally manages to break through Bobbi's defences after delivering her coruscating study of upper-class Manhattan wives, "The Ladies Who Lunch".  This classic was wonderfully paced and sung, and of course, LuPone was a sensation.  Luckily we were sitting halfway back in the stalls so there was no repeat of when we last saw her sing that song at the Leicester Square Theatre when she hurled her martini / water into the audience and I ended up soaked!

Elliott was lucky to get Patti: after suffering such pain from a needed hip operation that her last Broadway show had to close early, LuPone announced that she was finished with musicals - shortly before Marianne Elliott asked her to play Joanne!  LuPone was also a fan of Elliott's previous work so agreed - "if I had turned her down she may never have asked me again" LuPone has said.  Thank goodness she changed her mind.  As great as she was at socking over "The Ladies Who Lunch", her playing of the whole scene was a masterclass in nailing a character and holding her moment.

So, despite Craig, everybody rise... COMPANY is back in town.

50 Favourite Musicals: 46: COMPANY (1970) (Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1970, Alvin Theater, NY
First seen by me: 1996, Albery Theatre, London

Productions seen: two

Score: Stephen Sondheim
Book: George Furth

Plot:  Robert is single and living in New York; on his 35th birthday his best friends - five couples - throw him a surprise party which finally makes him confront his lack of commitment in relationships.

Five memorable numbers: BEING ALIVE, THE LADIES WHO LUNCH, BARCELONA, GETTING MARRIED TODAY, SIDE BY SIDE BY SIDE

As you all reel from the fact that a Sondheim musical is only at #46, I have to say that, although it's not my favourite of his shows, I think I enjoyed it more than the 'Variety' critic who reported after seeing it's 1970 Boston try-out "As it stands now it's for ladies' matinees, homos and misogynists."  Charmed.  I had to wait quite a while to see it and finally caught up with Sam Mendes' Donmar revival when it transferred to the Albery in 1996 with the extraordinary cast of Adrian Lester as Robert, the late Sheila Gish as Joanne, the unstoppable Sophie Thompson as Amy and such solid musical performers as Teddy Kempner, Paul Bentley, Clare Burt, Clive Rowe and Michael Simkins - a company as good as that can distract you from thoughts that the characters are all fairly annoying.  My main COMPANY memory is seeing Patti LuPone at the Leicester Square Theatre who ended her show with Joanne's coruscating solo THE LADIES WHO LUNCH and, at the song's climax, tossed her martini (aka water) into the audience - and over me.  Cow. Let's see if she can do it again in October when we see her play the role in Marianne Elliott's upsy-gender revival at the Gielgud....

Here is a remarkable performance of THE LADIES WHO LUNCH by it's originator Elaine Stritch - the performance is worthy of Beckett it's so unflinching..

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Another Sunday, Another Sondheim!This time it was to see a concert version of Sondheim's 1970 groundbreaking musical COMPANY which reunited the cast members from the Donmar's 1995 production originally directed by Sam Mendes.

I must say from the off that COMPANY is a show that I find it hard to warm to - the score yes, the show no. The story - or non-story - of Robert arriving at his 35th birthday and being finally forced to confront his single status and commitment phobia has just never connected with me. The show was originally a series of one-act plays by George Furth and I have always felt that it has never managed to transcend that. The long and the short of it is - I can't be arsed about any of the characters, no matter how amusing they are.

I felt this performance wasn't as cohesive as last Sunday's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG which I guess is the fault of director Jamie Lloyd. I had hoped I was over my distrust of Lloyd and his more-speed-instead-of-haste approach after enjoying his production of PASSION but, opposed to Rob Ashford's MERRILY which had a depth and vibrant performances despite the concert setting, here it felt the actors had turned up, had read what was on the sheet in front of them and moved to where they were told to move to.

Some of the performers still managed to shine - Adrian Lester can still pull off the trick of making Robert a three-dimensional character and his singing of the classic BEING ALIVE was wonderfully vibrant and, yes, alive. He won the Olivier Award for this role and it's still easy to see why.

It was nice to see Rebecca Front and Clive Rowe as his married friends Sarah and Harry who are still sniping away at each other about his drinking and her eating fads, Gareth Snook as married man Peter was still clumsily trying to make a pass at Robert and the three girls who Robert is keeping hanging were very well played by Anna Francolini as the manic Marta, Summer Strallen as Kathy and Katherine Kingsley as air stewardess April.

To be honest, my main reason for wanting to see the show was to see Sophie Thompson again as Amy, the scatterbrained girlfriend of Michael Simkin's Paul who despite everything was NOT GETTING MARRIED TODAY. Once again Sophie stopped the show with the song and nailed the humour and the pathos in the scene following it.

Sophie was nominated for the Olivier Award for this performance but lost to co-star Sheila Gish who played Elaine Stritch's landmark role as Joanne, the hard-drinking, sardonic older married woman who has Robert in her sights.

Sadly Sheila Gish died five years ago - the show was dedicated to her memory - and it was stated "It’s our job to honour Sheila by getting somebody brilliant in that role" Somebody brilliant must have had her mobile turned off as we got Haydn Gwynne. She was o.k. but it would have been amazing to see someone like Frances Barber play it.

Gareth Valentine was again Music Director and did a fantastic job with a fine nine-piece onstage band in punching over Sondheim's constantly surprising score. Shame about that damn book.

And so endeth the year of Sondheim celebrations... unless someone would like to squeeze in a quick production of THE FROGS?