MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG. Tol 19 May.
Derby
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG
music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim book by George Furth
Derby Playhouse To 19 May 2007
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm no performance 7 May
Runs 2hr 40min One interval
TICKETS: 01332 363275
www.derbyplayhouse.co.uk
Review: Alan Geary: 19 April 2007
You’ll be changed – elevated even – as well as being vastly entertained.
Initially, all’s not well. Composer Frank Shepard (Glyn Kerslake, exceptional), at the summit of his career, sits at a piano wondering where it all went wrong. People from the past appear in his imagination and sing an overture.
To discover just what did go wrong, the action runs backwards from 1976 to 1957, a reversal generating massive dramatic ironies. The Broadway premiere bombed; it had young actors starting out old and steadily getting younger. Here it’s done the other way round - and it works.
Frank’s estranged from his family, but also from lyricist Charlie Kringas (Glenn Carter, superb), who, along with Mary Flynn, was his deepest friend. Kringas has just won a Pulitzer for some serious work whilst Mary, once a promising writer, is an over-weight soak with a wrecked marriage behind her.
Acting, sharp and deliberately over-emphatic, never becomes hammy. Interplay of music and text is uncannily skilful: at the same time as singing, actors are speaking true to character and situation. Choreography is gutsy. For the most part it’s set on, and is about, Broadway. But it’s a sad attack on most things Broadway represents.
Back projection helps expose the popular media, deepen characterisation and locate the action in the wider American context. Parallels with the shattered Kennedy myth are emphasised. A revolving set works visual miracles.
Gussie Carnegie, an exploitative marriage-breaker and selfish advocate of hedonism, is finally sympathetic, washed up and supplanted by fickle fashion and the younger blonde in Frank’s life. There’s a powerful image of her lying in a clingy dress atop a grand piano, singing.
A Sondheimian number is sung straight by Charlie, with Frank at the piano but, at Gussie’s behest, is adulterated into conventional Broadway slush. It’s tempting to draw parallels between Frank’s career and Sondheim’s. Unlike Frank, Sondheim has refused to take the wrong turning.
Alongside its concern with artistic integrity,Merrily We Roll Along examines the difference between old friends and good friends, and the way we drift apart as we develop.
After a string of outstanding productions under the direction of Karen Louise Hebden, this is another triumph.
Tyler: David Ashley
Joe Josephson: Michael Beckley
Ru: James Bisp
Gussie Carnegie: Julie-Alanah Brighten
Charley Kringas: Glenn Carter
Bunker/Mr Spencer: Maurice Clarke
Jerome: Stephen Hogan
Frank Shepard: Glyn Kerslake
Mary Flynn: Eliza Lumley
Beth Spencer: Cheryl Mc Avoy
Meg Kincaid: Alexis Owen-Hobbs
Kt/Mrs Spencer: Joanne Redman
Scotty: Ben Sleep
Red Team
Young Frank: George Cotton & Joe Lavender
Blue Team
Young Frank: Joseph Godfrey & Joshua Tarry
Director: Karen Louise Hebden
Designer: Dan Potra
Lighting Designer: Lucy Carter
Musical Arrangement/Director: Andrew Synnott
Choreographer: Fergus Logan
Sound Engineer: Matt McKenzie
Video Designer: Peter Savill
2007-04-27 09:54:06