| I am another who prefers “Not a Day Goes By” to be Frank’s song. Like Chazawa, I feel that, whatever Furth’s and Sondheim’s original intentions, the song — one of Sondheim’s loveliest ballads — is wasted on Beth, who the audience isn’t invested in and who remains a marginal and barely sketched character, even at the show’s end. Not only does the song give some much needed sympathy for Frank at that point in Act I, but it also is critical for setting up the “revelation” of Mary’s being in love with him when the song is reprised in Act II. It’s such a moving moment on the OBC when Ann Morrison chimes in with “Not a single day”. And I feel that whole reprise is diminished, even ruined, when that poignant and veiled duet between Frank and Mary becomes a trio with Beth and Mary singing over each other. |
