You know, there’s a specific kind of smugness that comes with being a critic. It’s not pretty, I admit that. But when you spot something forty years ago – something everyone else was busy kicking into the gutter – and you say, “Actually, hang on, I think this might be brilliant,” and then decades later the rest of the world finally catches up? Well. It’s satisfying.
I’m talking about Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along.
If you know your musical theatre history, you know the lore. It’s the Titanic of Broadway. The Hindenburg with tap shoes. Back in 1981, this thing premiered in New York and it was a bloodbath. I mean, properly reviled. Audiences walked out. Critics sharpened their knives and went to town on it. It closed in two weeks. Two weeks! For a Sondheim show, that’s not just a failure; it’s a public execution.
But I saw it in preview back then. And I remember sitting there, amidst the groans and the shuffling of feet, thinking: “Am I crazy? Or is this actually heartbreaking?”
Fast forward to now. The film version of the recent Broadway revival – the one directed by Maria Friedman, starring Daniel Radcliffe – is hitting cinemas. And suddenly, everyone is crying. Everyone calls it a masterpiece. It won four Tonys. It ran for a year.
It makes you wonder. Did the show change? Did we change? Or is it just that failure, fermented over forty years, eventually tastes like vintage wine?
The Architecture of Regret
Let’s look at the mechanics of the thing. Because Merrily isn’t a normal musical. It’s a headache.
The story runs backwards. That’s the gimmick. It starts in 1976 (or the late 70s, depending on the production tweaks) at the height of cynicism, and ends in 1957 at the height of innocence. We watch three friends – Franklin, a composer who sold his soul to Hollywood; Charley, his intense, neurotic lyricist partner; and Mary, the writer who loved Franklin in silence – fall apart. But we watch them fall apart by rewinding to the moment they came together.
In 1981, people hated this. They found it confusing. Why should I care about these bitter, rich people yelling at each other in the first scene?
But watching the film of Friedman’s production, it struck me that this structure isn’t a gimmick. It’s actually the only honest way to talk about adulthood. We don’t live our lives analyzing the present; we live them by constantly re-evaluating the past. We look at a broken friendship and ask, “Where did the crack start?” Merrily forces you to do that forensic work.
And it hurts. God, it hurts.
There’s a brutality to it. Usually, in a tragedy, you watch the mistakes happen and dread the ending. Here, you know the ending within ten minutes. The ending is the start. The tragedy isn’t what happens; it’s what doesn’t happen. It’s the slow, imperceptible erosion of standards. A compromise here. A check cashed there. A friend ignored.
It’s almost aggressive how Sondheim handles it. He makes you watch the death of a dream before you’ve even seen the dream being born.
The “Fixing” of a Flop
So why does it work now when it tanked then?
Partly, it’s the tinkering. Sondheim and George Furth (who wrote the book) didn’t just pack up and go home after ’81. They spent years rewriting. They fixed the opening. The original version had this weird high school graduation framing device that felt amateurish. Now, it starts at a gaudy, hollow Hollywood party. It grounds the cynicism immediately.
But the biggest shift – and this is where Maria Friedman is a genius – is the casting.
In the original production, they cast kids. Teenagers. The idea was they would play older in the beginning and then “grow into” their real ages by the end. It was a disaster. Seeing a 20-year-old putting on a fake deep voice to play a jaded 40-year-old producer? It just looked like a school play.
Friedman went the other way. She cast adults. Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, Lindsay Mendez. They’re all in their thirties (or thereabouts). They play the older, bitter versions naturally. And then, as the clock winds back, they shed the weight. They get lighter.
It works because it’s easier for an adult to remember being young than for a kid to imagine being old. When Groff’s Franklin sheds his suit and his cynicism to become the wide-eyed 25-year-old on a rooftop, it’s devastating because we can see the ghost of the old man he’s going to become hanging over him.
The Radcliffe Factor
And we have to talk about Radcliffe.
I’ll admit, for a long time, I was skeptical. The “Harry Potter on stage” thing felt like stunt casting. A way to sell tickets to tourists. And sure, he puts bums on seats. But watching him as Charley Kringas? Actually, scrap that skepticism. He’s fantastic.
Charley is a difficult role. He’s the moral compass, but he’s also annoying. He’s neurotic, high-strung, judgmental. In the wrong hands, he’s just a nag. But Radcliffe brings this frantic, sweaty, desperate energy to him. You believe he cares about the art. You believe he loves Franklin so much it makes him sick.
There’s a number in the first act (which is technically the end of their friendship) called “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” It’s a meltdown on live TV. Radcliffe tackles it like he’s trying to exorcise a demon. It’s fast, patter-heavy, manic. It’s not polished star-turn acting; it’s gritty character work.
And maybe there’s a meta-layer there too. Radcliffe knows what it’s like to be consumed by a machine. He knows about the pressure of fame, the way the industry wants to box you in. When his character screams about wanting to just “write the music,” you feel like maybe that’s not just acting.
The Music of Memory
Then there’s the score.
Sondheim always hated the accusation that he couldn’t write a hummable tune. There’s a scene in the show where a producer literally says to the young writers, “I’ll let you know when Stravinsky has a hit.” It’s Sondheim taking a swipe at his own critics.
The irony, of course, is that Merrily is stuffed with tunes. “Old Friends,” “Good Thing Going,” “Not a Day Goes By.” These are earworms. I’ve been humming them since 1981, often when I didn’t want to.
But the brilliance isn’t just the melody; it’s the construction. Sondheim explains this in his books, but you can hear it without a music degree. Because the show goes backwards, the reprises come before the main songs.
Think about that. You hear a song – say, “Not a Day Goes By” – sung by Franklin’s ex-wife, Beth. She’s angry. She’s divorcing him. She sings it with this controlled, white-hot fury. “You won’t go away.” It’s a curse.
Then, an hour later (which is five years earlier in the plot), you hear the same song. But this time, Franklin and Beth are getting married. They’re singing it to each other on the steps of a courthouse. “Not a day goes by…” suddenly, it’s a vow. It’s pure love.
Because you’ve already heard the angry version, the happy version breaks your heart. You know where that love is going. You know those words will eventually be weaponized. It’s a magic trick that only music can do. It bypasses your brain and hits you right in the gut.
The Cinema Experiment
So, should you see it in a cinema?
I’m usually a purist about this. Theatre is sweat and spit and dust. It’s being in the room. Filmed theatre often feels sterile. You lose the danger.
But Merrily is intimate. It’s essentially a chamber piece about three people in a room. The close-ups actually help. You catch the flicker of doubt in Groff’s eyes when he’s lying to himself. You see the way Mendez looks at him when he’s not looking.
Also, let’s be real: tickets for the Broadway run were going for hundreds of dollars. If you could even get one. This democratizes it. It lets you see a definitive performance of a difficult show without taking out a mortgage.
And frankly, I cried. I sat there in the screening room, a hardened old hack who has seen everything, and I was wiping my eyes.
The Meaning of Success
Why does this show hit so hard right now?
Maybe it’s because we’re living in a time that feels very transactional. Everyone is a brand. Everyone is optimizing their content. The character of Franklin Shepard – the guy who stops writing what he loves because “movies make money” – feels painfully modern. He’s the original sell-out.
But the show doesn’t demonize him, not really. Not in this production. Groff plays him as a tragic innocent. He doesn’t set out to be a monster. He just says “yes” to the easy things, one by one, until he wakes up and realizes he’s surrounded by sycophants and he’s lost his best friends.
It’s a warning. It asks us: What are you compromising? And is it worth it?
There’s also the queerness of it all. It’s not explicit in the text, but the intensity of the male friendship – Franklin and Charley – vibrates with something more than just “work buddies.” Scott F. Stoddart wrote about this, the homoerotic undercurrent of their breakup. When Charley falls apart, it’s not a business partner quitting; it’s a lover being scorned. It adds another layer of tragedy. The path not taken.
The Vindication
There is a bittersweet aftertaste to all this success, though. Sondheim died in 2021. He saw the beginnings of this revival’s momentum – he worked with Friedman on her earlier versions – but he missed this global victory lap.
He spent forty years defending this show. He knew it was good. He knew the structure was right. He knew the songs were some of his best. But the world wouldn’t listen. They just saw the flop.
Now, finally, the world agrees with him.
It reminds me of that line in the show: “It’s a hit! It’s a hit! And we’re ready to quit…”
Sondheim didn’t quit, thank god. He kept writing. He gave us Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods. But Merrily was the wound that never quite healed.
Seeing it now, polished and celebrated, feels like closing a circle. It proves that art isn’t static. A failure in 1981 can be a masterpiece in 2024 because the context changes. The audience grows up.
Why You Should Go
Look, it’s not a perfect show. The second act (which is the earlier years) can feel a bit too saccharine if you’re not careful. The optimism of the young characters can grate on you if you’re feeling particularly cynical that day.
But that’s the point. You’re supposed to find them naive. You’re supposed to want to shake them and say, “Don’t do it! Don’t sign the contract! Don’t marry her!”
But they can’t hear you. They roll along anyway.
Maria Friedman has done something special here. She hasn’t just staged a musical; she’s conducted a séance. She’s brought the ghosts of 1981 back to life and given them the applause they deserved back then.
I remember walking out of that theatre in New York forty years ago, arguing with a colleague who said it was “unwatchable.” I told him he was wrong. I told him it was just ahead of its time.
It took a while – longer than I expected, honestly – but it’s nice to be right.
Go see it. Take tissues. And maybe call your friends afterwards. Just to check in. Before you drift apart.
The Texture of Time
There’s one final thing that sticks with me about this production, and it’s something that film captures weirdly well. It’s the texture of the costumes, the sets, the hair. Because we move backwards, the visual language gets simpler.
We start in the polyester, wide-lapel hell of the late 70s. Everything is loud, synthetic, expensive but ugly. As we go back, the fabrics get natural. Cotton. Wool. The hair gets messier. The smiles get realer.
It’s a subtle visual cue that tells you everything about what Franklin has lost. He traded the messy, textured reality of his youth for a sleek, synthetic, profitable adulthood.
It makes you look at your own life. I looked at my own career, my own choices. We all have our “Franklin Shepard” moments. The article we wrote just for the paycheck. The argument we didn’t have because it was easier to stay silent. The friend we let drift away because we were “too busy.”
Merrily We Roll Along isn’t really about a composer. It’s about the accumulation of small choices. It’s about the physics of compromise.
Most musicals send you out humming a tune and feeling like everything is going to be okay. This one sends you out humming a tune and wondering if you’ve wasted your life.
And strange as it sounds, that is a joyful experience. Because it wakes you up. It grabs you by the lapels and says: “Pay attention. The clock is ticking. And it only goes one way.”
Unless, of course, you’re in a Sondheim musical.
Final Thoughts from the Stalls
I’m glad this was filmed. Theatre is ephemeral; that’s its beauty, but it’s also its tragedy. Great performances vanish into the air. I still talk about performances I saw in the 90s that no one else remembers, and sometimes I wonder if I imagined them.
But this – Radcliffe sweating through his shirt, Groff’s heartbreaking smile, Mendez’s powerful stillness – this is captured now. It’s a record.
It’s proof that a flop isn’t a full stop. It’s just a comma.
If you love theatre, you have to see it. If you love Sondheim, you’ve probably already bought tickets. But even if you just like a good story about how difficult it is to be a human being with other human beings, go.
It’s a hit. Finally. And it only took a lifetime to get there.
