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Regional Reviews: St. Louis Merrily We Roll Along Also see Richard's reviews of Ragtime, Dial "M" For Murder, and Topdog/Underdog
Well, it's the future for the audience. I think. It's like Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years which also plays from finish-to-start (for one of the two characters). In Merrily, we have the added pleasure of the "Sondheim Conflicted Universe" where, for every emotion, there is an equal and opposite emotion ready to smash it to bits. Furth, who teamed up with Sondheim in 1970 for Company, also wrote the book for this show, which infamously seemed to defy its own chronology, closing almost before it opened after just 16 performances. It was recently revived very successfully on Broadway. And now (in what is almost certain to be the present) it gets a smart new limited run in St. Louis at Take Two Productions. There's a fine cast, with a meticulous and insightful director and choreographer in Stephen Peirick. On stage, a trio of scribes is ratcheted backward in time with the help of a fun chorus, shedding years and disappointment and recrimination, and regaining their youthful hope and trust in one another. The witty, tuneful show includes numbers like "Not A Day Goes By," "Good Thing Going," and "It's a Hit." And it all seems shorter than its two hours and forty minutes (with intermission), in a theater inside the massive art deco Third Baptist Church. This Merrily features an outstanding knot of local performers at its core: the comic genius Michael Baird seems to fully blossom as Charley, and Ryan Farmer is a natural leading man as Franklin. Grace Langford shows miles of fresh singing and acting talent as Mary. In one heartbreaking scene, she watches a wedding from afar, looking like one of Edward Hopper's permanently bemused women. The musical bristles with melody, laughs and melancholy. Matthew Kauzlarich proves an excellent music director, with skillful singers filling the stage, lifted up by a sure-handed band. The delightfully colorful costumes, especially during the 1970s and 1960s scenes, were rounded-up by the director with help of the always reliable Abby Pastorello. Kristin Meyer is perfect as Gussie, who starts the play as a bitter ex-Broadway star, then slowly reversing the story of her life as the extremely focused "other woman" standing seductively in Franklin's path. Even that leads to something earlier and unexpected, though there's a pretty traceable line of narrative breadcrumbs guiding us backward in the script. Wonderful Brittany Kohl plays the composer's first wife Beth, grounding Franklin and adding the show's grandest emotional power during their divorce. Jonathan Hey masters both the pathos and the wit of Gussie's first husband Joe and (whatever the opposite of "ultimately" is, in this case) becomes the songwriters' agent. Lachlan Bell is highly professional as the young son of Franklin and Beth. Beloved stage regulars Jeffrey M. Wright, Lindsey Jones, and Adam Grun are part of an admirable chorus of revolving characters in a cast that also includes the terrific Zachary Thompson. The show begs the question, "was it all worth it?" The songwriting team, Franklin and Charley, and their friend Mary (also a writer) don't know it, but cynical hatreds are winding backward, simplifying into joyful naïveté. And when the story's puzzle is finally, thoroughly broken up and swept aside, when all the compromises and cheating is subtracted out, and it's the very first night the trio has ever come together, the answer is yes: suffering was just the price they paid for their all their desires. Finally, a Buddhist musical! The show neatly avoids the self-congratulatory tone of a "words and music" tuner like They're Playing Our Song, with a steady application of Sondheim's trademark nuance and insight. It's sheer emotional poetry with a light-handed touch. And in this staging, it packs an off-handed attitude toward consistently beautiful singing and arch comedy. Merrily We Roll Along, produced by Take Two Productions, runs through October 5, 2024, at the Third Baptist Church, 620 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis MO. For tickets and information, please visit www.taketwoproductions.org. Cast: The Band: Production Staff: |
