Jonathan Groff Rolls Merrily Back

For more than forty years, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical “Merrily We Roll Along” was a problem in search of a solution. Loosely based on a Kaufman and Hart play of the same name, it opened on Broadway in 1981, in a production that Frank Rich, in the Times, declared “a shambles.” It closed after sixteen performances, but amassed a devoted following (count me among it) as it was continually rewritten and restaged. The show tells the story of three show-biz friends who unite as hopeful youngsters and blast apart in disillusioned middle age: the dashing, talented composer Frank; the neurotic lyricist Charley; and the spunky, lovelorn writer Mary. But the story is told in reverse, starting with the trio’s estrangement and ending with their origin as wide-eyed college kids on a rooftop in 1957, watching Sputnik overhead as they sing about changing the world together.