Merrily We Roll Along at Alley Rep

Or: Take What You Want, And Pay For It

I’ll level with you, dear reader: Merrily is hard show to do. It’s Sondheim, so you can’t hum it, it’s fast paced and heart aching, and you cannot coast over the nuances of the emotional journey through each scene and song. Moreover, as a play that rolls backwards in time, the company has to fight against a strong current to keep the audiences attention. After all, when you start at the pinnacle of success and the ruin of all things good and true and work your way backwards, how are you supposed to keep us guessing what’s coming?

Which is why it is so impressive that Alley Rep has taken a swing at this most ambitious of musicals and struck it right in the sweet, singing spot of the bat to send it soaring. Starting from the first seductive chords of the title number the whole company rises to the challenge of drawing us in and showing the intricacies of the story. Franklin Shepard (Taylor Hawker) is at the height of his fame, a mover and shaker, universally beloved except by his wife Gussie (Julia Ketay), his daughter, his alcoholic and dramatic critic friend Mary (Madeline Jorgensen) and virulently estranged creative partner Charley Cringes (Alaggio Laurino). There is a very palatable sense that behind his mirrored shades and his thousand watt smile, Frank can hear the ice creaking around him and should it ever break there will be nothing to stop his plummet into oblivion.

From there we follow the years as the roll away showing all the moments Frank has made the choices; pursuing wealth over credibility, pleasure over passion, and success over good work ongoing that led him to his unenviable state. How his friendships with Charlie and Mary grew and deepened and bent and broke. Without hammering home or glossing over these leitmotifs each little moment of the tragedy, every moment where things could have turned out for the better are lifted out and made to glimmer.

The whole production gets in on the act from Choreographer Dugan Jackman’s minimalist steps to Costumer Wendy Fox’s period popping pieces to little flashes of character from each of the cast. Special mention goes to Frank’s two betrayed wives, Ketay’s Gussie and Tiara Thompson as Beth. The latter jumps into the plot with all engines running and carefully reassembles the shattered pieces of her life so we can only see the cracks forming, while mastering a side-eye that made me cackle, and gracing the whole theater a sweet, clear voice. Ketay gives Gussie (the shadow to our trio of heroes, the ill-fated star that pulls them into her orbit) not only the trappings of a fem fatal but builds a whole fascinating character phrasings and gestures that are half cruel and half enchanting and just perfectest bit weird.

Laurino also keeps his pulse on the comedy, full of beans and Charlies high wire antics, whilst Jorgensen provides the necessary electricity that keeps the trio and the play running. Mary is a sumptuous role because she is so obviously in love with Frank and nobody acknowledges this. If he were less oblivious and she would seize the moment for herself, we see, the musical would be much different. But alas. And still Jorgensen is drawn to him, floating after him mouthlike, wings already beginning to singe, in bitterness and that spark of hope that sets her heart afire.

Hawker meanwhile leaves his whole heart on the stage. Guileless, his Frank is the perfect mix of selfish and selfless, flirtatious and sweet, filled with hope for the future and utterly confounded by why the world won’t follow his cue. It is his looks of loss, in each moment of the play, that tie the whole thing together. The exact look of a man who’s paid the price for his dreams and found that the cost was everything that made them worthwhile. But it is so worth the ride to watch him fall.