Effectively, scratch no extra. Director Maria Friedman, in league with stars Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliffe, burrow all the way down to the musical’s theatrical core and uncover not a shallow pool of glibness however a deep wellspring of emotionality. Friedman’s poignant Broadway revival, formally opening Tuesday evening on the Hudson Theatre, is a fabulous marriage of Sondheim’s stupendously satisfying music and lyrics with Friedman’s seminal insights. She preserves the biting humor, too, of this adaptation of a 1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
If solely Sondheim and Furth (to not point out Kaufman and Hart) might have lived to have seen how their collective handiwork has been so expertly and tenderly refined. Though the musical “Merrily” was born as a cynical takedown of the leisure trade, what Friedman and firm have erected, extra importantly, is a narrative of the painful structure of long-term friendship. The blessed contributions of Groff, Mendez and Radcliffe — along with Krystal Pleasure Brown, Katie Rose Clarke and Reg Rogers in essential supporting roles — coalesce in a method that feels virtually religious.
The fractious breakup of Franklin Shepard (Groff), Charley Kringas (Radcliffe) and Mary Flynn (Mendez) unfolds backward: the present begins within the 1970s with tumultuous blowups in center age, and ends within the 1950s, once they meet one another as youthful, would-be artists. Friedman will get that “Merrily” is a love story and an exploration of the transactional dimension in even the closest of friendships. As Charley sadly observes concerning the three of them as their aspirations and emotions veer off in several instructions: “Now, we’re one and one and one.”
Sondheim’s compositions present the commanding ligature for Furth’s nimble characters: that is a kind of Sondheim listening events if you assume, “No, this one is his strongest rating.” It’s a thought that truly happens on many evenings in a Sondheimiac’s life. However if you’re listening to his music so fantastically realized — Radcliffe retains up impressively with musical-theater prodigies Mendez and Groff — you grasp much more deeply the melodic and lyrical sophistication at work.
It helps too, that the orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick sound so sturdy below the baton of Joel Fram. Cleverly, surroundings and costume designer Soutra Gilmour — making a extra solid-looking model of final 12 months’s off-Broadway manufacturing at New York Theatre Workshop — locations the 13-member band within the penthouse of an all-purpose-domicile set. Gilmour has dazzlingly upgraded the interval costumes, too, particularly however not just for Brown, who performs Gussie Carnegie, the voracious actress who pries Frank out of the arms of his hapless spouse, Clarke’s Beth.
“Not a Day Goes By,” the attractive torch tune Beth sings in two emotional keys, as soon as when she and Frank divorce, and later (as a result of it’s informed in reverse) once they marry, are shifting excessive factors in a night stuffed with them. “Previous Associates,” “Good Factor Going,” “Our Time” and “Rising Up” are calculated to have our hearts leaping into our throats at common intervals. All three stars get their large solos, however nobody raises the viewers’s blood strain extra satisfyingly than Radcliffe, who as pure artist Charley is the fortunate deliverer of the high-minded tantrum tune, “Franklin Shepard, Inc.”
As lovelorn Mary, Mendez pulls the present’s most energetic sympathy lever; her readings of Furth’s sarcastic, booze-fueled put-downs grant her entry to the unique membership inhabited by “Firm’s” gimlet-eyed Joanne. Wondrously, because the night progresses, her Mary, a journalist, trades her acidic commentary for a softer adoration of Frank and Charley, a Broadway songwriting staff. Groff’s transformation-in-reverse is a perceptive journey as nicely, from remorseful Hollywood sellout to star-struck ravenous artist, urgent his nostril up in opposition to the window of fame and riches.
In a method, “Merrily,” which debuted when Sondheim was in his early 40s — the age of his fundamental characters at first of the musical — could possibly be a dramatization of knowledgeable rigidity Sondheim himself felt. Frank, with music, and Charley, with phrases, characterize the 2 sides of Sondheim’s personal artwork and maybe, embodiments of his efforts to reconcile materials success and intellectual achievement. In the end, “Merrily” asks, can artists anticipate to have each?
Ideally, this Broadway incarnation will likely be each a success and a mirrored image of the upper aspirations of musical theater. It’s even tighter, funnier and extra touching than what Friedman staged off-Broadway.
A lot ingenuity. A lot joyful creativity. A lot for audiences to savor.
Merrily We Roll Alongside, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, guide by George Furth. Directed by Maria Friedman. Units and costumes, Soutra Gilmour; lighting, Amith Chandrashaker; sound, Kai Harada; orchestrations, Jonathan Tunick; choreography, Tim Jackson; music course, Alvin Hough Jr. With Maya Boyd, Sherz Aletaha, Corey Mach, Talia Simone Robinson, Leana Rae Concepcion, Brian Sears, Jamila Sabares-Klemm, Christian Unusual, Max Rackenberg, Brady Wagner. About 2 hours 45 minutes. At Hudson Theatre, 141 W. 44th St., New York. merrilyonbroadway.com.