Two Minutes' Traffic: Merrily We Roll Along, Signature Theatre

One of the least surprising programming choices of the year came when Signature Theatre announced it would be remounting Merrily We Roll Along for the first time since 2007; the recent New York production directed by Maria Friedman was such a success that of course, Signature was going to have another crack at the previously (still?) notorious egg. Real Sondheim Nerds love to share the legend of the original production's ill fated Broadway premiere right alongside passionate defenses of the gems within the score, and many directors have worked over the years to try and massage the rough edges of the show and avoid the errors that brought down the original. With Friedman's success, I expect that productions of Merrily have been popping up across the country like mushrooms after a rainstorm, and this week, Matthew Gardiner's staging opens at Signature.

The program notes call out a single reason for the show's original difficulties: that the original source material for the musical made it too hard to sympathize with Frank because by telling the story in reverse, he was so unlikeable that no one wanted to follow his journey back into a young idealist. Sondheim was convinced music could solve this problem; the production history of the last 40+ years say that this was not entirely a successful tactic. 

Gardiner's production seems oriented toward trying to solve this Frank equation, staging the overture to show a dressed-down Frank (Jason Gotay), visited by Charley (Jake Lowenthal) and Mary (Melanie Fields), urging him wordlessly within this liminal space to write music again. Gotay plays this moment as conflicted, resentful but not wholly willing to turn his back on either the art or his friends; by the final moments of the show, we return to a Frank ready to make the choice. The equation, however, remains unbalanced throughout the show, because the central trio never quite clicks into place, despite strong performances by all three actors. In particular, throughout the evening, there are moments with Charley and Frank stand together, and Mary is set off by herself, behind them, and has to insert herself into the pair. If it's a deliberate choice to isolate her, it doesn't quite work; if it's not deliberate, it works against the text in odd ways and keeps the chemistry between the trio stunted.

One unexpected pleasure of the evening is Maria Rizzo's Gussie Carnegie, Frank's second wife who has a fascinating trajectory throughout the evening that is only ever glimpsed when it brushes against Frank's attention. From her first appearance in a dazzling caftan and turban (Ivania Stack is clearly having an absolute ball as the costume designer), Gussie simmers with anger and resentment towards her husband and the life with him she pursued, crackling with broken hopes and humanity. In previous productions I've seen, I've never been half as captivated by this character, but Rizzo absolutely sells her complexities and makes you wish we saw more of her story from her own perspective. 

Gardiner's Merrily does roll along slickly, even if not entirely satisfyingly. Merrily We Roll Along isn't a masterpiece, but a flawed work created by a theatrical genius, which means that even with its flaws, there's so much to chew on and songs that deserve their place in the Sondheim pantheon. It's worth seeing, and worth critiquing.