Customer Reviews

Showstopper (Kindle Single)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an original cast member, I can attest to the fact that everything here is true. Being in the show was a formative experience, to say the least: thrilling and heartbreaking in equal measure. With clarity, eloquence and tremendous insight, Abby has captured what the "Merrily" adventure was like, and how it's impacted all of us who were lucky enough to have been there. For those who were not, this is absolutely, positively the next best thing. Thanks, Abby, it's a great read.

"Merrily We Roll Along," the Stephen Sondheim / Harold Prince musical more talked and written about than performed or listened to, opened Nov. 16, 1981 and closed just 15 performances later.

Abigail Pogrebin was one of the 28 original cast members. Although the past, to Pogrebin, "feels very much like it's passed," the 30th anniversary of the production later this year is reason enough to reminisce and reflect on how Sondheim's show about aiming high and falling hard has informed her life.

Pogrebin takes us backstage during the musical's genesis, as it progressed from "promising to plagued." There were too many characters to keep straight, the cast had teenagers portraying wizened, world-weary adults. As she says, the "pathos wasn't registering." There were song and cast changes, costume overhauls, the choreographer was let go. More and more, rehearsals became "less jubilant and more sober." After opening night, the critics and particularly Frank Rich in the "New York Times, dealt a mortal blow, Rich calling the cast "dead wood."

Today the musical has become a cult favorite but is still most often remembered in the mainstream for the standard "Not a Day Goes By." In 1981 Pogrebin was a 16-year-old. Auditioning, getting a part - in the ensemble - rehearsing she became part of a team that became a family of troopers who remained in contact and assembled again in 2002 for a one-night special reunion concert.

Pogrebin, now in her 40s, went on to become a successful journalist. Her experience with "Merrily" remains one of the defining moments of her life. The show's last song, "Our Time," has the line "Years from now, we'll remember and we'll come back."

Looking back now, she remembers her part in the show as a moment in her life when she "felt airborne." Her heartfelt memoir, more than anything, succeeds in capturing a special time in her life and a singular moment in musical theater history.

[4.5 stars]

This book is a rare gem, a well-written inside look at what it's like to live the dream: being in a Sondheim show on Broadway. But this exceptional book is also so much more: a thought-provoking exploration on the loss of innocence. I devoured it! A must read.

My disappontment with Ms Pogrebin's storytelling, is that there simply wasn't enough of it. I hope that she will take the time to expand this essay, into a full book. It makes an interesting magazine article, but was just too cursory.

A must for the Merrily fanatic, for normal folks not so much.

Don't expect something along the lines of Chapin's "Everything Was Possible," a substantial book. This is merely an extended magazine article on Pogrebin's experience as a cast member in the Broadway production of Merrily We Roll Along. And even then, only about half is about putting the show up, the rest is about later life experiences.

It's pleasant but awkward, in the way of many memoirs by failed actors: vivid showbiz anecdotes followed by pale apologias for giving up on the dream. A little sweet, a little depressing.

Maybe it's because I'm not familiar with this play, but I needed more of a hook to become invested in this story. I wanted to feel a connection to the inner workings, the ups and downs of putting together a Broadway hit or miss. The facts were there, and it was a nice overview, but it would be great if the concept was expanded and a depth of character development could be there as well...Overall fun, but I wanted more....

I have never understood why MWRA flopped. Other than the fact that Frank Rich must have had the flu or something. I saw the show in previews and loved it. Hopefully this year a revival will mend the mistake.