"Merrily We Roll Along" in Atlanta: Mary's Time

Before a sold out crowd, director Freddie Ashley of Atlanta's Actor's Express Theatre said that the actors of his staged reading of Merrily We Roll Along were all "superheroes" for learning Stephen Sondheim's intricately interlocking musical lines in just one week.   Superheroes indeed, they performed the score and dialogue so well that we didn't care that they were "on - book."

Having blogged about the show a few times, now [see links below], I'll limit comments to exploring why I and my friends came away talking mostly about "Mary,"  secondary character.

As "Mary Flynn," actress Jessica Miesel makes a friendly, appealing presence. The fact that she alone wore vibrant colors made her stand out. But her voice is strong at all ends of her rangy songs, and she enunciates Sondheim's fast-flying lyrics. Thanks to the concert format, she's physically present throughout the show, if not in the action, then as witness in character.

Her role as witness, ever-present, may explain why, for once, the character "Mary" seemed to be closer to the show's emotional center than composer "Franklin Shepard." She starts as the bitter drunk, her lines all zingers, building to her enraged exit from Franklin's home and life. As each successive scene peels back the years in Franklin's relationships, we see Mary as the one woman in his life who supports and understands him, the only one not to manipulate him for her own needs. She tries to nudge him back to his mission he started with, to give the world "so much stuff to sing." Franklin's lyricist Charley Kringas gives up on Franklin before he'll give up that mission; Mary is the one who intercedes between Franklin and Charley. In this production, Mary's waiting literally on the sidelines throughout the show reinforced her role on the sidelines of Franklin's life.

Perhaps centering the show on Mary was not director Freddie Ashley's intention.  The usual center of attention, "Franklin," was hampered by his make up.  The poster shows "Franklin" actor Craig Waldrip to be a tousle-headed youth with friendly grin. The rest of the ensemble looks young, too; but only Waldrip had spray-on gray hair and age lines, so during the opening number we are alienated from him, even before the script gives us reason to be.  His get-up makes sense in the first scene, when Franklin's a middle-aged producer of commercially successful movies, estranged from old friends, flirting with a young starlet in front of his furious wife, and painfully aware that his movie panders to "what the public wants."  During that scene, Waldrip, all gray, looks like he's sucking a lemon. "Franklin" is not appealing, though everyone sings their praises of "That Frank."

The show's creators intended for us to warm up to the character as time, moving backwards, reveals a naïve but charismatic young man who dreams of making a difference in the world with his music. In this production, as the show goes on, the make-up and get-up distanced us from Waldrip, with collateral damage to our buying into his ideal -- a socially - conscious musical to be called "Take a Left."   Does anyone remember the impact of lefty Broadway musicals "The Cradle Will Rock?" Or "Flahooley?" The idea of a political musical that might change the society just isn't all that credible.


So the arc of Mary's story was the backbone of this production. That made the show's torch song "Not a Day Goes By" very affecting. The premise of the song is that Franklin and the character "Beth" (Laura Floyd) sing the song to each other in the night club where they perform his songs together, as a prelude to taking wedding vows. They promise that "Not a Day Goes By" but their love grows stronger. Watching from afar, tears in her eyes, actress Miesel sang the same words, "Mary's" painful expression of unrequited devotion to Franklin. In the final scene, Franklin has just met Mary, and he tosses off a line about how he should marry her -- and, in this production,  Miesel gave him a look of hope and adoration: the beginning of a fatal relationship.

[Photo: Jessica Miesel]

Other actors were strong. Juan Carlos Unzueta made Charley an affable guy, and his "Franklin Shepard, Inc." number stopped the show. Natasha Drena, the only Equity actor in the show, naturally played the older woman who seduces Franklin. I'd seen her before as Judy Garland (see The End of the Rainbow), and once again, she was a virtuoso manipulator - cajoling, kittenish, hurt, needy, petulant, sometimes all of the above in the space of a couple lines. As her first husband, Skyler Brown had long black curly hair, no gray, far too young for the part; but his baritone voice was commanding, and he certainly conveyed the man's pitiable puppy-like devotion to the woman who does him wrong.

[Photo: The cast and me. Photo made by friend Suzanne, who saw the John Doyle production with me in Cincinnati, and friend Susan, who saw the show in London and again with me in its HD transmission to movie theatres. ]

Previous blogposts about Merrily We Roll Along:

• How Did You Get to Be Here?  I reflect upon John Doyle's production of Merrily We Roll Along in Cincinnati.  
• Rhymes with Integrity considers the song "Growing Up," added to the score years after the premier, and how it integrates with the rest of Merrily. I wrote it under the influence of the HD transmission of the award - winning London production. 
• I reflect on a documentary film  about the original cast in A Merrily Little Christmas.