I sincerely hope and assume Friedman has polished, sharpened, and deepened her direction of her production in the 11 years since that London mounting... and that the Broadway cast is better directed, all in the same show, and that whoever directs this filming has a better sense of how to film it flatteringly than was done from London.
We don't need another film of this production where everyone says "it was SO much more effective live in the theater, you'd have to have been there to get why it's gotten such praise."
(I went to the Merrily london screening in a movie theater when it was broadcast and found it mostly terrible, and I was embarrassed to have brought friends to it that didn't know the show already -- not everyone had such a negative feeling about it as I, but i do recall the overall feeling being "well it was great live, you can't translate why it was great to a film of the stage show"). |
