| re: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG -- Will the Original Version Ever Be Performed Again? | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 07:18 pm EDT 03/24/24 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 07:13 pm EDT 03/24/24 | |
| In reply to: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG -- Will the Original Version Ever Be Performed Again? - BroadwayTonyJ 06:43 pm EDT 03/24/24 | |
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| Unfortunately, I don't think there is such a consensus. If anything, the success of the current production has perhaps convinced some former skeptics — well, at least Jesse Green — that the revision can work. Mostly what I see online is a feeling that the revision must be an improvement, although this opinion often seems to be held by people who've never seen the original version. Actually, to have seen the version that opened on November 16, 1981, probably means to have seen the original production since even the first licensed version, produced quite a number of times until the revised version was licensed, had differences from what opened on Broadway. Although those differences were relatively few, some were important. I was all in favor of giving the act-one "Not a Day Goes By" back to Beth and restoring "The Blob," two of the changes in the first licensed version. I think it was a mistake to cut the monologues for Mary, Charley, Gussie, Joe and Beth, monologues that I gather Furth had added reluctantly and under duress and he hated them. I think they worked well for the audience. They were all short and maybe added three minutes to the running time. Of course, I know a bunch of people who think what opened on November 16, 1981, is far superior to the revision, and certainly some folks here, including Chazwaza, feel that way, but I think the consensus, to the degree that there is one, is that the revision is better, even if the opinion is sometimes held in relative ignorance. Anyway, it's not just MTI. I'm pretty sure that permission would have to be granted by the estates of the authors. I have suspected, although I don't know, that Furth left Sondheim in charge of decisions regarding future productions of Merrily. I think this simply because I am very doubtful that Furth himself would have allowed the changes made at Encores! and by Fiasco, but it could be that whoever Furth left in charge, if it wasn't Sondheim, was more open to big changes than Furth would have been. Putting aside the question of whether I liked the Fiasco changes as fairly irrelevant in this discussion, I feel positive that Furth would have been turning over in his grave if he somehow magically knew about them. Regarding the materials, I think all the materials exist in pretty good shape, except possibly for the orchestrations for the long "Now You Know" dance section. I think I've read that when the reunion concert took place, Tunick made many corrections to mistakes in the orchestral parts as they had been licensed, and I think, or at least hope, that the materials as corrected still exist. |
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