Topic: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (Read 28031 times)

bk · « **on:** July 08, 2007, 12:53:53 AM »

Well, you've read the notes, the notes merrily ran along, and now it is time for you to post until the cows come home - they're merrily rolling along, too, somewhere in the south of France.

bk · « **Reply #1 on:** July 08, 2007, 12:58:25 AM »

And the word of the day is: HARMATIA!

bk · « **Reply #2 on:** July 08, 2007, 12:59:29 AM »

Welcome sixteen GUESTS. Want any shares?

singdaw · « **Reply #3 on:** July 08, 2007, 04:08:57 AM »

I woke up with my newly-framed picture of Flaming Baked Alaska next to me on my bed-side table and just KNEW that it's going to be a good day!

singdaw · « **Reply #4 on:** July 08, 2007, 04:18:50 AM »

bk, I found your comments about Merrilly interesting. I am wondering if you feel the same way about Kaufman and Hart's source play? Or, if not, what did they do successfully to keep the audience from disassociating with the characters that Furth, Sondheim, & Prince did not?

singdaw · « **Reply #5 on:** July 08, 2007, 04:19:42 AM »

Quote from: bk on July 08, 2007, 12:59:29 AM

Welcome sixteen GUESTS. Want any shares?

It's nice to share!

Tomovoz · « **Reply #6 on:** July 08, 2007, 04:46:38 AM »

I really had no problem with the characters of "Merrily". The history of the friendships was to me, a fascinating and involving journey.

Tomovoz · « **Reply #7 on:** July 08, 2007, 04:49:17 AM »

A happy Sunday to you all as I prepare to head into Monday.

Jrand73 · « **Reply #8 on:** July 08, 2007, 04:55:24 AM »

Travel vibes for DR SINGDAW as he returns to the BIG APPLE.

Jrand73 · « **Reply #9 on:** July 08, 2007, 04:56:05 AM »

For a species that is social....some human animals are quite disconnected.

Jrand73 · « **Reply #10 on:** July 08, 2007, 05:06:49 AM »

ERCOLE.

elmore3003 · « **Reply #11 on:** July 08, 2007, 05:10:12 AM »

Good morning, all! I return to Toyland this morning for the last time this week. I worry that I'll find another breakin since the two other ones happen on the weekend. I am soooo hoping that we'll learn tomorrow that a lease has been signed and a moving day set. After that, it's back to the Spirtas charts, which are an ordeal since the band is so small. There's not much color with only a sax and trumpet and everything, if he wants the charts expanded later, will have to be redone from scratch. I'll be glad when this one's over.

MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, which I saw in its fifth preview and again on closing night, improved greatly in previews but I think only an act of God could save this show. Anne Kaufman Schneider's comment to me after the Arena Stage production was that the backward plot didn't work for Kaufman and Hart and it it was her belief in the Arena Stage production that half the audience never knew the show was going backward. At least for Kaufman and Hart, the plot was tied, like THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER, to people they knew in a roman a clef, and I always suspected that Charlie and Frank, for Steve Sondheim, were Oscar and Dick but I've never seen anything to prove it.

In 1938, BABES IN ARMS had a hot cast of 10-20 year-olds - out of vaudeville, the theatre and films - but the MERRILY cast had a lot of young actors out of college who were out of their league. Jason Alexander and Lonny Price were wonderful, but poor Ann Morrison in her opening scene, as a miserable unhappy drunk in her 40s (think Dorothy Parker) didn't know what the character was at all about. The first act was rather tedious, with a lot of poor acting choices and some of the ugliest scenery and T-shirts ever seen. The original period costumes had been dropped by the fifth preview. After Act Two got going and the cast was actually in the correct age range, things improved in the acting dept. but it was still a turkey. Who wants to pay $50 in 1983 to see a bad high school play?

Jrand73 · « **Reply #12 on:** July 08, 2007, 05:15:49 AM »

Is the Frankling Shepherd that DR JOSE was talking about yesterday related to the Changeling Boy in AMND?

elmore3003 · « **Reply #13 on:** July 08, 2007, 05:17:45 AM »

Back to MERRILY! There were many wise decisions before the opening: replacing the choreographer, simplifying some scenery, rethinking some numbers, and my memory is the ridiculous plastic wading pool serving as a swimming pool in Act One Scene One and the actress rolling in it were cut. The "concept" of the designer seemed to be a high school gymnasium as I recall; my memory is that there were lockers everywhere but this is probably from the trauma of watching the show. Lonny Price was wonderful with "Franklin Shepard Inc." and I thought Jason Alexander was good. In previews the "Old Friends" number was vastly improved by removing the pop-art Life Saver Candy pillows the three of them originally played, and battled, with during the number. By the closing performance, the entire scene had been changed from a semblance of an apartment set with the pillows to a bare stage in the dark with the cast carrying flashlights and lunches in paper bags as they looked at an empty new apartment; it was quite wonderful. Little else was intil "Our Time."

Jrand73 · « **Reply #14 on:** July 08, 2007, 05:50:37 AM »

I do love the BK-produced CD of the score.

Michael · « **Reply #15 on:** July 08, 2007, 06:37:11 AM »

Actually by the 4th preview (which I saw) of Merrily We Roll Along the period costumes were gone and the t-shirts were in.

I forgot about the pool scene one. It was made of paper. Gussie shoves the starlet into it instead of throwing the acid (I think it was actually iodine)

Also I saw the original Frank; James Weisenbach. I am not sure when he was replaced.

So I saw the Saturday Matinee and that means Elmoore saw the Saturday Evening performance.

I still have my playbill from it.

Michael · « **Reply #16 on:** July 08, 2007, 06:40:30 AM »

There is also the original London recording that has the complete (revised) score on 2 CDs. There was supposed to be an appendix of songs that were cut from the show on the set, They were recorded but not put onto the cds. I know they were recorded because one of them Honey (which BK recorded with Liz Callaway and Jason Graae) eventually showed up on The MUSICality of Sondheim.

Michael · « **Reply #17 on:** July 08, 2007, 06:42:50 AM »

Honey and another song Thank You Very Much For Coming were performed in the Nightclub scene late in Act 2. The latter was a "throwaway song" lasting about a minute.

Michael · « **Reply #18 on:** July 08, 2007, 06:46:22 AM »

Sondheim says that Opening Doors is the most autobiographical of the songs that he wrote.

I never heard about the Rodgers/Hammerstein connection

Michael · « **Reply #19 on:** July 08, 2007, 06:52:08 AM »

I have also made a CD of the score in "reverse" order. I included the Bookends of The Hills of Tomorrow, Honey & Thank You Very Much For Coming.

It is interesting to here the score as it progressive forward from when they first meet until the That Frank sequence.

Interesting to see how Good Thing Going progresses as a song.

DearReaderLaura · « **Reply #20 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:17:39 AM »

I saw a community theater production of this show by a community theater that put on very good productions for a community theater. But I'd pass if anyone ever in town ever did this again.

DearReaderLaura · « **Reply #21 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:18:17 AM »

But then, I'm not in the business. I only buy the tickets. Which, come to think of it, keeps theaters in business.

S. Woody White · « **Reply #22 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:35:46 AM »

Good morning, Matt.

Noel · « **Reply #23 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:37:44 AM »

Quote from: Michael S on July 08, 2007, 06:46:22 AM

Sondheim says that Opening Doors is the most autobiographical of the songs that he wrote.

I never heard about the Rodgers/Hammerstein connection

I think Opening Doors as the most biographical song he ever wrote: It's my life, damn it! On On the Brink, someone wanted to cast a girlfriend, I rewrote old stuff, and we arrived, one day for rehearsal, to a locked theatre.

It's more likely based on the greatest collaborative team after Rodgers and Hammerstein, Bock and Harnick. After 13 years of writing the most brilliant musicals together (The Apple Tree, Fiorello, Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me, and my recent headache, Tenderloin), they had an ugly fight and didn't talk to each other for decades. Friends of Sondheim's, too.

Stephen Schwartz often points out, at the ASCAP workshop, that the film of Harold Pinter's Betrayal shows that running scenes in reverse can work. Each scene creates a mystery in the audience's mind: Why are they acting this way? What's in their history together? How did they come to this? And subsequent scenes scratch that itch while planting more mysteries.

I wouldn't be too quick to pin all the blame on Furth. When one collaborator says to another, what we've done is good enough to produce, they're both responsible for each component.

The world of popular music changed radically from 1959 to 1981: the mindless teen rock with only four chords, the squeaky clean Pat Boone stuff, the British Invasion and the countless innovations of the Beatles, acid rock and disco. So, why does Merrily We Roll Along keep sounding exactly the same whether it's (sing it now) nineteen-seventy-five or nineteen-sixty? Is this supposed to be some comment on Frank's inability to change with the times? Well, whatever we do, let's blame Furth.

S. Woody White · « **Reply #24 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:43:11 AM »

The only production of Merrily that I've seen was done by the drama department of Fullerton State U of C. They were working from the original script. The show lacked oomph.

Of the three recordings I have of the score (and according to the Musical Cast Album Database there are only the three), I too prefer the York recording that our esteemed BK produced. And I'm not just saying that because. I really do prefer the recording, both in the performances and the recording's clarity.

Jeanne · « **Reply #25 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:43:46 AM »

Good Sunday morning!

I hope that all those H/Ks who've been under the weather are feeling better and that DR Ron will soon rejoin us.

Matt H. · « **Reply #26 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:49:35 AM »

Good morning!

That horrific storm we had last night cooled things off tremendously, and I was able to open everything up for a fresh air evening, but when I got up at 8:30 (which is VERY late for me), it was already warmer outside than in, so I had to close everything down once again.

Matt H. · « **Reply #27 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:50:22 AM »

I have never seen MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG performed on any stage, and it's one of my objectives before I die to see it (hopefully in a professional production). I adore the score.

Matt H. · « **Reply #28 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:52:21 AM »

With only ENTOURAGE coming on tonight to watch, I'm looking forward to a glorious day of movies and MURDER SHE WROTE. As I speculated last night, I plan to watch CAGED and THE HILL at some point today. Anything else, I'll probably rewatch something like a Margaret Rutherford/Marple film or maybe a Hitchcock.

MusicGuy · « **Reply #29 on:** July 08, 2007, 07:54:38 AM »

Good morning all....I think that dear Esteemed BK is probably still asleep.....lying there in his Cedric Gibbons designer bedroom, and clad in his favorite Ballenciaga pegnoir. Quite the fetching picture on a nice Sunday morning.

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Author Topic: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (Read 28031 times)

singdaw

singdaw

singdaw