"Merrily We Roll Along": Review
sondheim, master of the intradiegetic
I went to see the show in a group. Over dinner before, we discuss shows we’ve seen recently; Dear Evan Hansen and Spelling Bee come up — not musicals I often think on. I remember my favorite musicals are just a tiny slice of the overall musical theatre world, and start to get a bit nervous.
I am often bored by musicals about spoilt Americans, and all I know about Merrily We Roll Along is that it seems to involve well-dressed New Yorkers.
Going in, I’m thinking I like works with sociopolitical themes and civilizational stakes. Historiographic Great Comet & Fiddler on the Roof, Evita & Miss Saigon, Billy Elliot. No navel-gazing little numbers. I like art that means something!
Lights down, curtains up, let’s begin.
Oh no…this is art about artists.
There’s one thing art about artists has going for it. It’s intradiegetic art. That’s art that exists within the story’s fictional world — in this case, music played by the characters as part of the story, within the broader score.
In Rent, one of the very last songs is Your Eyes. It’s played by Roger, an HIV-positive guitarist who’s been working on it for the entire show. And compared to the rest of the majestic score…it’s kind of simple? Basic? It is not by any means an extraordinary song. But that’s because it reflects Roger’s authentic abilities — the genuine best effort of an untrained 20-something.
So when I realized Merrily We Roll Along’s Frank and Charlie were a composer-and-lyricist duo, I got pretty excited to start hearing their work.
We hear it a few times over the course of the show. We keep jumping back in time. I wince at how the sociopolitical tapestry is being treated as cheap anchoring backdrop rather than something the characters might affect — we zoom past “Vietnam”, “Roe v. Wade”, “The Pill”, and an admittedly very funny number about the fecund Kennedies.
We keep rewinding. We’re watching Beth ask over and over “did you sleep with Gussie?”. And I’m thinking why would you set up your life in such a way that you can be hurt by the answer? That that is the question at hand here?
The score is majestic (Franklin Shepherd Inc., richer with context).
The intradiegetic songs are broadly unremarkable.
In the final scene; it’s 1957; we’re on the roof with Frank and Charlie in New York. Frank’s worried he’s wasted two years in the army.
We hear the origin of Take a Left, the play they’ll spend the subsequent two decades arguing about, the play that’ll keep getting pushed aside in favor of other, more lucrative and commercial projects.
They…meant to write a grand sociopolitical score. “We are the movers and we are the shakers…”. They don’t yet know life will get in the way.
Sondheim, this was rather masterful.
Did Sondheim mean to write something more ambitious once?
And by writing this, did he write it?
I don’t want to lose my care about ‘doing great work’. Andrew tells me “you’re a little bit too driven for that to happen”…I am not going to let my guard down.
Themes
Comparative Advantage
Listen, Frank does the money thing very well, but you know what? There are other people who do it better. And you know what? Frank does the music thing very well. And you know what? No one does it better.
The Cost of Getting Good
Frank, we cannot keep making our stuff the other thing we do!
Miscellanea
