Marnie Quick as Beth, Dan Mayhak as Frank, Catherine Kolos as Mary, NathanielYost as Charley and David leong as Joe Credit: Deana Muro |
Judging by the full and rich sound of the first notes music director, Douglas Levine gets from his eight-piece orchestra, you have to assume Front Porch Theatricals is giving its audience a exemplary production of Merrily We Roll Along. And you’d be right.
Off to a good
start musically, the show goes on to feature some fine vocal and acting skills
from its cast of, would you believe, 19.
Talk about a
challenge. In her directorial debut no less, actor and educator, Daina Michelle
Griffith, corrals this expansive cast with the skill a Catholic nun herding a
group of grade schoolers to daily mass. Only this is no throng of pre-teenagers
but a horde of professionals with talent galore up to the task of bringing
Broadway‘s legendary Stephen Sondheim‘s work to life.
The musical, based
on a play by Kaufman and Hart, opens during a party hosted by Frank (Dan Mayhak),
a composer turned Hollywood wunderkind, who’s celebrating the opening of his
new film. Among the attendees are long-standing friends with a 20-year bond,
plus Frank’s second wife, who’s aware of his newest romantic interest. Instead
of a celebration, Frank gets a rebuke as his major relationships are frayed, if
not unraveled.
Using the same
chronological template as Kaufman and Hart, the musical (book by George Furth)
then unwinds in reverse sequential order, a somewhat challenging arrangement to
the audience, so it pays to pay attention.
As we travel back
in time with the three friends, we learn that Charley (Nathaniel Yost) is a
talented writer who attaches words to Frank’s songs, and Mary (Catherine
Kolos), is a writer of fiction with a successful book to her name who’s fast on
her way down Booze Alley to alcohol addiction. Note: Kolos’ drunken antics at Frank’s
party are something to remember.
As the narrative
retrogrades into their past we see how their present is built and influenced by
their life experiences. How Frank gives in to the temptations of Hollywood
riches and abandons his early vision of creating meaningful art. Playing
Gilbert to Frank’s Sullivan, Charley feels betrayed and abandoned by his theatrical partner and
bears his grudges with outspoken candor. You’ll see this especially in the
patter-like song “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” he delivers in the middle of Act One.
Mayhak maintains a
boyish charm throughout the musical, an audience-winning trait that extends
from the beginning of the musical, which, if you’ve been paying attention, is
really the ending of the story line. Even when he’s spoiled by success and
egomania, he manages to get under your skin with sheer likeability.
As strong as
Mayhak is in his character, I was also impressed by the work of Yost, who may
not have the glam role but infuses his work with the same detail you find
in Baroque architecture and painting, if you‘ll excuse my hyperbole. The lad
also has a good deal of vocal talent,
The glue trying to
cement the triad of friends together and franticly attempts to keep things from
falling apart is Mary. Kolos shows her as a die-hard advocate for fraternal
camaraderie, steadfast in her zeal to maintain a delicate balance between the
two warring men but all the while, dealing with her own set of personal demons.
From out of the
blue comes, Beth (Marnie Quick), Franks’s first wife, who stole my heart with
her end-of-the -first act “Not a Day Goes By,” a tear-jerker ballad as sweet
and melancholy as a warm and sunny October afternoon.
Michaela Isenberg as Gussie and Dan Mayhak as Frank |
For a bit of sass,
Michaela Isenberg plays the worldly, savvy and manipulative Gussie, a woman who
knows how to use her alluring physicality to her advantage.
The rest of the
cast is just a solid as the main players, adding interest and an array of
colorful inventiveness to their roles.
For a musical that
begins with a sour disposition, Merrily ends on an aspirational note, showing
the three friends as star struck youngsters beginning life’s journey and
starting down the road that the audience already knows just how winding and
tumultuous things will get along the way.
If you remember the song "Merrily We Roll Along" as a child, you'll be in for an interesting adult change of pace when you see the version crafted by Sondheim and Furth.
Merrily We Roll
Along, a Front Porch Theatricals production, is at the New Hazlett Theater on
Pittsburgh’s North Side, through August 27. For tickets, go to
newhazletttheater,org.
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