Merrily We Roll Along Blu-ray Review: Auld Lang Syne

Stephen Sondheim’s failed 1981 musical was redeemed as a Tony-winning Broadway revival success in 2023, largely due to the massive marquee value of its three stars. That revival was filmed for posterity and has now reached Blu-ray after a brief theatrical run. Anchored by Jonathan Groff’s lead performance, the show remains faithful to its roots while fixing a major problem of the original production: the age of the stars.

The story tracks the devolving friendship of three people over the course of 20 years in reverse chronology. We’re first introduced to Groff’s smarmy Hollywood producer character, Franklin Shepard, as he celebrates his latest success at a rowdy cocaine-fueled party at his pad. His former best friend Charley (Daniel Radcliffe) is out of his life, his domineering wife is about to leave him, he’s cheating on her with the young star of his movie, and his oldest remaining friend, theatre critic Mary Flynn (Lindsay Mendez), is seconds from calling out his foolishness in front of the assembled crowd. In short, it’s a lot, so much that it requires over two hours to unpack how he got to this advanced stage of professional success and personal disaster.

As the show progresses, or rather reverses, we track the relationship of Franklin, Charley, and Mary as they celebrate their successes and mourn their failures, as Franklin’s career in particular degrades from Hollywood success to Broadway breakout to struggling college-aged composer. He also goes through two marriages during the twenty years, with his glamorous Hollywood actress wife Gussie (Krystal Joy Brown) replacing his more balanced Broadway performer first wife Beth (Katie Rose Clarke) along the way. Meanwhile, Mary carries a secret torch for him through the decades, escalating her disgust with his Hollywood life. 

When the show was originally mounted in 1981, the largely unknown actors were recruited in their 20s, making for an impossible feat for them to adequately convey the depths of accumulated middle-aged regrets in the show’s first act. The new production wisely cast stars in the neighborhood of 40, making for a much easier and poignant introduction to the characters, with Groff in particular achingly expressing the depths of his mature emotion in the opening scene. While the story moves backward, the actors do their best Benjamin Button-ing and mostly pull it off, with credulity only being strained a bit in the final couple of eras.

Remaining true to the show’s original production, the eras haven’t changed, with the story beginning in 1976 and moving back to 1957 in jumps averaging a couple of years at a time. An era update might be interesting, but the original eras allow the production designers to have archival fun with the fashion and sets. 

Director Maria Friedman mounts the filmed production on the Broadway stage with emphasis on “filmed,” including an unsettling early scene where the entire cast sings directly to the camera, obliterating any illusion that we’re just watching a typical taped live show. Cameras are in the actors’ faces, providing extreme but largely unnecessary closeups. Aside from scattered applause, there’s no visual evidence of the audience, and even the final bows have been excised to make for a more cinematic effect. The show looks great on Blu-ray, with 5.1 DTS-HD MA sound enhancing the immersion.

As for the performances, Groff is the unequivocable star, although he’s tasked more with acting moments than vocal pyrotechnics. If you’re thinking Harry Potter isn’t a singer, you’re correct, but Radcliffe’s Charley also isn’t required to do any vocal heavy lifting, with his thin singing voice doing a passable job when called for. Surprisingly, as the most renowned Broadway singer in the trio, Mendez also just passes with her light vocal load, revealing a bit too much quaver to be explained only by her character’s emotion. With no real showstopping turns for the leads, the best purely musical theatre performance is Brown’s powerful mid-show “Gussie’s Opening Number,” although Clarke’s rendition of the standard “Not a Day Goes By” is a winner as well.

While the new revival was a massive Broadway success, it also retains the core flaw of the original production by Sondheim and book writer George Furth, as well as its source 1934 play. We know from the start how badly it’s going to turn out for the trio of friends, vastly reducing incentive to discover how they got there since there’s no hope for a happy ending. The production is infused with the sadness of broken or reduced friendships, as well as the ennui of inescapable middle age, making for a real bummer of a ride instead of an uplifting experience. There’s plenty to celebrate in the committed performances by the cast, and Sondheim’s classic songs are the principal attraction for true theatre aficionados, but the story remains a despairing trip to times long past.