| Years ago I was directing Pinter's BETRAYAL, a play I like quite a bit. As an exercise one day, we ran the scenes in chronological order - what a mess! Everything was obvious, and fake, and pretty awful Pinter knew what he was doing! The interesting thing about the musical MERRILY is that it takes some things from the musical - but leaves the best behind. Kaufman and Hart being MUCH better writers than George Furth, The high school graduation scene (Hills of Tomorrow) was needed because of the , as it turns out, bad idea of casting all 20 somethings - so they had to begin with a scene where they were all playing their own ages, more or less. Then jump forward, then slowly roll back in time. The play MERRILY (with a cast of almost 100) opened with a scene in 1934, at a rich rich party in Long Island, which ends with an argument and a brutal confrontation. Much more powerful than anything in the musical. And the nit goes on like that, scene after scene until the bright beginning where it all started. Walter Abel, one of the stars was 36. The play had a rave review to end all rave reviews in the Times, from Brooks Atkinson. The play was definitely darker than the musical ever has been. And it broke your heart. |
