Bursting with dreams, catching at dreams, practicing dreams, dreams that will explode… The characters in the Stephen Sondheim/George Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along, now presented at the Gaithersburg Arts Barn by the Damascus Theatre Company, dream big. Their dreams become nightmares. How?
We see the nightmares first. At a 1976 celebratory party for Franklin Shepard’s (Ethan Kahwaty) latest successful but vapid movie, his wife Gussie (Kristina Friedgen) publicly leaves him, after first throwing iodine in his girlfriend’s face. His longtime friend Mary Flynn (Neva Keuroglian Sullivan), by now an out-of-control alcoholic, drunkenly rebukes him and leaves. His friend and former collaborator, Charley Kringis (Adam Esrig), is absent, having long given up on a relationship with Frank.
The structure of the show, like that of its source material, a 1934 play of the same name by George Kaufman and Moss Hart, runs retrospectively. Each scene chronologically precedes the one before it. The play becomes something of an archeological dig, each scene peeling away another layer in the characters’ lives, excavating the choices that led them away from the deep friendship and idealistic hope they felt on their first meeting in 1957.
So it is that, in 1973, Charley, distraught over Frank’s focus on money over music, melts down on live TV, blowing up what is left of their friendship. “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” is one of the most challenging numbers in the Sondheim canon, and Esrig delivers it with admirable clarity. Esrig’s Charley is eager, needy, and nerdy, less powerful than Frank in their relationship, but a survivor whose life remains the most intact of the three principals. He loses a friend and collaborator but not himself.
Mary, hopelessly in love with Frank, is not so fortunate. She stands by watching him marry and then divorce his first wife, Beth (Faith Wang), allow himself to be seduced by Gussie, and grow distant from Charley. Mary does not make demands on Frank or try to manipulate him. She tries to stay close to him by helping to maintain his other relationships. She attempts to mediate the growing estrangement between Frank and Charley and warns Beth about Gussie’s designs on her husband. With somewhat mixed motives, she urges Frank to take a vacation after his divorce from Beth. Sullivan’s “Like It Was” and “Old Friends,” and above all, the second act version of “Not a Day Goes By” mark her as the most affecting character in the show.
As Sondheim notes in Finishing the Hat, Frank, in the early part of the show, is “entirely unsympathetic… He is arrogant, an adulterer, a betrayer of his best friend and the cause of near-suicidal alcoholism [by Mary].” In “Growing Up,” Kahwaty shows Frank as he considers his choices, rationalizing making the wrong ones. Emotionally unaware, Frank is the hollow center of the show, around whom the other characters and the ensemble revolve. Kahwaty cannot (indeed, should not) make the character likeable, but as we see more of Frank’s past, he becomes at least more understandable.
Of the three major supporting characters, the most interesting one to me in this production was Joe Josephson, the very commercial producer who wishes Frank would write more “hummable” melodies (Sondheim’s rejoinder to people who made that criticism of his work). In a role that can sometimes get lost in the shuffle, Bill Brown gives a very relaxed, unassuming portrayal of a man of limited imagination who influences from behind the scenes. There’s a very funny, well-executed moment as Joe exits humming a somewhat off-kilter snatch from “Some Enchanted Evening.”
Gussie, clawing her way up from working class roots, first marries Joe and then, her ambition unsatisfied, sets her sights on the even more successful Frank. She knows how to use people: her version of “Growing Up” is a master class in manipulation. Friedgen plays Gussie’s brassiness for all it is worth. Frank, lacking a solid core, is easy prey for her unsubtle seduction, which feels as much about her star power, and what that means to Frank, as it is about sex.
Wang’s Beth seems a somewhat fragile figure, her first act version of “Not a Day Goes By” — probably the show’s best-known number — emphasizing her sadness, without the high-wattage fury one sometimes hears in the number. In their early days, she does have moments of happiness, particularly in “Bobbie and Jackie and Jack,” in which she, Frank, and Charley in 1962 perform a lighthearted spoof of the Kennedy family. (I suspect younger members of the audience might need footnotes to identify some of the White House denizens and visiting artists mentioned in the song.)
Merrily We Roll Along is a great ensemble show, and Damascus Theatre Company’s ensemble shines, not only in group numbers like the “Transitions” and “The Blob” but in small but important character bits. Examples include Tianna Leon as Meg (Frank’s first scene girlfriend), Nicki Mazza as Beth’s disapproving mother, Julianna Cooper as K.T. (the TV host in “Franklin Shepard, Inc.,” and Ryan Muha as Tyler (who tries to sell Joe on his wonderful new invention, the answering machine). While Merrily is not a dance-heavy show, choreographer Megan McNellage keeps the movement crisp and well-organized, “The Blob” being a particularly nice moment.
Between Sondheim’s full and complex score, the show’s many vivid characters, and its reverse chronology, Merrily can be a challenging show to mount. Director Keith Edward meets the challenge in a production that is tight, trusts the material and the cast, and makes optimal use of the Arts Barn’s limited playing space. Details are clear and specific. Music Director Owen Posnett’s small band accompanies the singing effectively. My favorite lighting moment in Rick Swinks’ design came in the second act version of “Not a Day Goes By,” when Mary, sitting apart from Frank and Beth as they plan their marriage, is highlighted in her sorrow.
There is some wisdom in the retrospective structure of Merrily. People in middle or older age have the opportunity to look back on the choices they’ve made and, perhaps, reconsider where they are going by reviewing where they have been. It’s interesting to think about whether there is any hope that Frank — in despair, facing upstage, head down on the piano at the beginning and end of the show — might somehow find a means to redeem his life. Sondheim thought not, saying that Frank is left “sinking into the hell he has created.” May the Theater Gods forgive me, but I am not sure he was necessarily right. Having realized that all is lost, perhaps such a person could pick a different road, getting to know the countryside in a different way. We’ll never know, but a show of this emotional complexity invites the speculation.
Running Time: Approximately two and a half hours, including one intermission.
Merrily We Roll Along plays through March 23, 2025 (Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at 2 & 8 PM, and Sunday at 2 PM), presented by Arts on the Green in partnership with Damascus Theatre Company performing at the Arts Barn, 311 Kent Square Road, Gaithersburg, MD. For tickets ($25; $23, students 15–21; $16, youth 14 and under), buy them at the door or purchase them online. Online ticket sales end two hours prior to the performance. Tickets may also be purchased in person at the Arts Barn box office or by calling 301-258-6394.
Merrily We Roll Along
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by George Furth
Based on the original play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart
Directed by Keith Edward
Choreographed by Megan McNellage
Produced by Carol Boyle & Elli Swink
