YMMV / Merrily We Roll Along

• Audience-Alienating Premise:
  • The original Sondheim version of the musical has a workable central premise in the tragic story of three friends who all lose their youthful optimism over the course of two decades and end up with every artistic spark crushed out, but was doomed with its setup of telling the story in reverse order. The first audiences were horribly confused and walked out in droves, and there were quite a few rewrites to try to make it more understandable over the course of more than a decade before he finally gave up.
  • Both the original play and the musical suffer from trying to make audiences feel sorry for people who have become rich and successful but still feel unfulfilled. Writer Herman Mankiewicz famously summed up the play's problem this way (though he would later end up writing a similar story himself with Citizen Kane):
    Herman J. Mankiewicz: Here's this wealthy playwright who has repeated successes and earned enormous sums of money, has mistresses as well as a family, an expensive town house, a luxurious beach house and a yacht. The problem is: How did the son of a bitch get into this jam?
• Awesome Music: While the show was initially negatively reviewed, Sondheim's score was given a better reception, and it is considered some of his finest work:
  • The Overture definitely ranks among the best-known Broadway overtures along with Gypsy and Candide.
  • "Franklin Shepard, Inc." is a showcase for whoever is singing it, especially in the 2023 revival with Daniel Radcliffe, who brought the house down with it every night.
• Broken Base: As usual with shows Sondheim revised, there is disagreement over which version is better, especially whether the show is better off with Frank's original first song, "Rich and Happy," or "That Frank," which has replaced it in most subsequent productions. Sondheim dismissed "Rich and Happy" as too tied to the show's original Framing Device of kids play-acting the lives of rich adults, but it gives Frank an "I Am" Song while "That Frank" mostly puts him on the sidelines while other people chatter about him.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Prior to Frank and Charley's climactic NBC interview, the anchor mentions that Roe v. Wade has finally been codified into law, and that the controversy surrounding abortion "is finally over". Following the overturning of Roe in late 2023, this line now inspires sardonic laughter.
• Informed Wrongness: "Franklin Shepard, Inc." is Charley's "The Villain Sucks" Song about Frank, but the things he portrays Frank as doing - talking to his lawyer and secretary, working out contracts and rights issues - are pretty normal for a successful Broadway musical creator, and, as Charley admits, have resulted in both of them making a lot of money from their collaborations. Justified in that Charley also admits near the end of the number that what he's really upset about is that his friendship with Frank is over and they're now just business partners.
  Charlie: Listen, Frank does the money thing very well. But you know what? Other people do it better. And Frank does the music thing very well. And you know what? No one does it better.
• Tear Jerker: The whole musical, particularly on the second viewing.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Meta example. Because the original Sondheim version ran for only sixteen performances with no video recording of it, or any of its revivals, there was no footage for usage in the HBO documentary about Sondheim "Six By Sondheim". To compensate, the director hired Darren Criss and America Fererra, along with several other actors, to film new footage of the group performing the "Opening Doors" sequence from the climax of the second act for the documentary. Sondheim even pitches in, helping the actors with their character motivations for the sequence. Though an interesting look at the career of Sondheim, one can only ask why the producers, with Criss and Fererra at their disposal, didn't just do an HBO movie version of Merrily We Roll Along instead....
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: It can be very hard to engage with the story when you already know everything turns out horribly for everyone involved.
• Vindicated by History: The original Broadway production received negative reviews and closed down after 16 performances and 52 previews. The show has since been revised and played to acclaim.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Mary's unrequited love for Frank is very sympathetic, but it's not Frank's fault that she pined for twenty years instead of making an effort to get over him after it was clear he only saw her as a friend.

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