Michael Arden, the Wallis’s new Artist in Residence, has given the troubled musical Merrily We Roll Along a galvanizing shot in the arm with his culturally diverse casting and imaginative staging. Now on tap at the Wallis, this locally produced revival of Merrily has a lot going for it, thanks largely to the unflagging energy and spirit of its youthful, inter-racial performers. Led by Wayne Brady (as Charley Kringas), Aaron Lazar (as Franklin Shepard) and Donna Vivino (as Mary Flynn), the large cast has been well-orchestrated by Arden, whose previous production at the Wallis, Spring Awakening, transferred successfully to Broadway. As most theater fans know, Merrily flopped dismally when it was first done in New York in 1981, with Hal Prince directing. Furth and Sondheim kept working on the show over the years, tinkering with the text and adding new songs. Arden has given the revamped version his personal touch, substituting his own staging for Prince’s and helping to give the play a new look and feel. That’s not to say that all of the tuner’s problems have been solved. Its story about three wasted showbiz lives is still told backwards. Pinter used the technique skillfully in Betrayal, Furth/Sondheim not so well in Merrily. There is still something anti-climactic about the way the action unfolds; still something annoying about its main characters, who keep reminding us how ambition, success, and money have ruined their lives. We are also distanced emotionally from them by Furth’s oft-cliched text. What is most effective and thrilling about the musical is Sondheim’s score. Although his take-off on the Kennedy family, “Bobby and Jackie and Jack,” falls flat, many other of his songs, especially “Franklin Shepard, Inc.,” “Good Thing Going” and “Our Time,” are exciting and moving–-exceptional, really. Arden might not have turned Merrily We Roll Along into a great musical, but he has certainly showed us that it has a lot going for it.
