Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 02:52 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - lordofspeech 04:01 am EST 01/03/19 | |
|
|
|
| Not to be repetitive, since others have already responded, but, yes, Beth sang it in early previews, then it was given to Frank. I think it may have actually been given back to Beth for a few days during previews after having been given to Frank, but I'm not sure. In any case, it definitely started as Beth's song, and it ended up as Frank's. | |
| reply to this message |
| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 04:05 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - AlanScott 02:52 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
|
|
|
| I'm gonna side with Hal Prince on this one... giving it to Beth, while in theory a great idea, is actually dramatically unsatisfying. She is never a character we get to know well, and when the song comes we've only just met her. What we need at that moment is more depth and emotional nuance from Frank, and that song gave him some of that. Giving it to Beth takes an important song and color of his character away from him and gives it to a character we don't know -- not to mention that she then really just has an anthem saying she will always love this man who cheated on her and broke up her family. It's only intellectually satisfying a little when, in act two, we realize she was singing back to him the vows he made on their wedding night. I don't think robbing Peter to pay Paul in this sense is worth it what you get from it. Also the Act Two version of NADGB already has its own new element with Mary joining in singing it to/about Frank while Frank and Beth sing it to each other. That's enough for the audience. |
|
| reply to this message |
| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: larry13 11:59 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - Chazwaza 04:05 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
|
|
|
| I totally agree with you(and, I guess, with Prince)about Beth singing this incandescent song the moment she first appears. It has never worked for me. I'd be interested in seeing Frank sing it. When Mary sings it in the second act, it IS heartbreaking. SHE is a developed character we care about. Not Beth, at least not for me. Maybe this is one of the(many)problems that the whole structure of the musical imposes. Too many nasty, unappealing and/or undeveloped characters in the first act. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Last Edit: lordofspeech 08:51 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 08:49 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - Chazwaza 04:05 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
|
|
|
| Wow. Thank you all. I guess these responses clarify who started out singing NOT A DAY GOES BY. I guess I saw a very early preview, if not the first....because I saw Beth sing it. Beth singing it was heart-wrenching. I guess I don’t think Frank needs character development; at least he doesn’t need that song. His story (told forward) is about an idealistic innocent jettisoning the ideals and the people he once held dear. In that sense, it works for me that Charlie and Beth have the emotional breakdowns. Frank is, like Benjamin Stone (and perhaps Sweeney Todd, too) a study in calcification of what was once a human being into a worshipper of power over others. If the story were told forward, it would be too too grim. But, in backwards time, we go from dark to light. Beth should sing it. We need to feel the cost of Frank’s destroying people. It’s a play about a monster who started with ambition. Is ambition necessarily evil? Maybe. Unfortunately, in every version, Mary stays too on the periphery. Trying to emphasize her tragedy by inserting her singing “Not a Day Goes By” doesn’t work. It might be better if she had a crush on Beth, so that the dissolution of the marriage would impact her. Maybe. The t-shirts were not a good idea. You couldn’t really read them and they undermined any power the narrative might have had. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| Beth sang it for the first two or three weeks | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 07:29 am EST 01/07/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - lordofspeech 08:49 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
|
|
|
| Sorry it's taken me a few days to reply. Beth definitely sang "Not a Day Goes By" for more than two weeks. I'm not sure exactly when it was given to Frank, but Beth sang it for at least two-and-a-half weeks, maybe more than three. It's possible that one point it was given to Frank for a few days, then it was given back to Beth, and then back to Frank again. At the moment, I don't have the time to respond in a lot of detail about my feelings on all these questions, except to say that I think Beth should sing it. I think it was a mistake to take it away from her. I have heard that it was taken away from her because some people felt that Sally Klein didn't sing it well enough. If that was the reason, I think it was crazy. And so does most everyone I know who saw Sally Klein do the song. Maybe her singing wasn't thrilling, but it was good enough, and her acting of the song was so beautiful. Her acting was beautiful throughout. For me, no later Beth I've seen has come close. She was just so likable up there, so endearing, so simple, real, funny, delightful and touching. Has anyone been nearly as funny in "Bobby and Jackie and Jack"? No (or at least no one I've seen). |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 12:27 am EST 01/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - lordofspeech 08:49 pm EST 01/03/19 | |
|
|
|
| "Beth singing it was heart-wrenching.....Beth should sing it. We need to feel the cost of Frank’s destroying people. " But isn't it true that, in the original version of MERRILY, the "Not a Day Goes By" scene is the first time we see Beth in the show, and doesn't she only have a very few lines before she starts singing? I'm rather surprised that you found it heart-wrenching under those circumstances, and yes, it makes sense to me to switch the song to Frank for that reason. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 12:43 pm EST 01/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - Michael_Portantiere 12:27 am EST 01/04/19 | |
|
|
|
| I've always wondered why we didn't have, at least, one scene with Beth earlier in the show, after her divorce from Frank, to introduce the character, specifically so that "Not A Day Goes By" doesn't come out of the blue in the divorce scene. Just because people divorce doesn't mean that they disappear from one another's stories, although, in this case, I believe the reason for that is that Beth is so devastated that she takes the son and leaves the city to return to her hometown. I would love to see a post-divorce/pre-ballad Beth who has survived crossing paths with Frank in a way that we're not sure Charlie or Mary will. Perhaps she went back to performing or maybe she got remarried to someone who makes her happy or maybe something entirely different. I imagine that, no matter what, Beth would have a private sadness that her marriage to Frank failed and that she will always love him in some small way, even though she would only show that to the audience or, perhaps, Charlie or Mary, but never to Frank. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Questions about the new MERRILY | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 01:18 pm EST 01/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Questions about the new MERRILY - JereNYC 12:43 pm EST 01/04/19 | |
|
|
|
| JereNYC, I don't know the revised version of MERRILY well enough to say, but doesn't it include at least one brief scene of Beth before (i.e., after) the "Not a Day Goes By" scene? This is an honest question, I really don't remember. If such a scene was NOT added, I completely agree that it should have been. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
Time to render: 0.019981 seconds.