Merrily We Roll Along

The Longwood Players' new play, Merrily We Roll Along, is actually a musical. It was quite an experience to see it on Saturday, in the almost packed YMCA theater. It was only the second musical I've seen in theaters. Compared to Broadway productions, there is definitely room to improve in singing, but over all it is very impressive for a small group (18 actors) to put up such a show (it runs for almost two and a half hours) with live music and acting in such a short time.

It is said that it took Stephen Sondheim and George Furth nearly fifteen years of tinkering before getting "Merrily We Roll Along" right. Apparantly I wasn't able to associate their names with entertainment before I went to this show. Though Sondheim is quite big, I thought most songs sound too plain to me. That is, they are not very tuneful. Nevertheless, there are several numbers that are quite memorable.

The story is about a successful composer (yet he had lost everything - love and friendship) and his two best friends. It begins at the end of their friendship, and goes back through times of their lives. It was a little hard for me to get it at the beginning (just like the movie Momento). Luckily it soon got better. In the end we knew all the answers. We saw three young aspiring artists on a New York rooftop in 1957, watching the first man-made satellite, dreaming about their future. It is a better ending than the other way around. At least we can still dream about the paths they could have taken, all the possibilities in their future, and how nice it is to be young.

For a review of this production, see here.

Young and aspiring
A pre-dawn pajama party on the roof

The set. Foreground lights dim. Lighting from behind.

The set. Full view.
I helped (a little bit) painting it.