‘Merrily’ rolls along brilliantly

“How did you get to be here?” is the question that “Merrily We Roll Along” explores as it follows the life of everyman Frank Shepard backward from the despair of his empty success to a time when his heart was still full of youthful hope.

Director Andrew Wright masterfully tracks Frank and his two lifelong friends, Mary Flynn and Charley Kringas, in this Sondheim and Furth classic that rolls forward backward to show the inevitable tragedy of a man whose mistake was to keep saying yes when he meant no.

Wright brilliantly transitions from the drunken fall that the alcoholic Mary takes at Frank’s Hollywood film premier to Frank punching out Charley at the final estrangement of their writing partnership and friendship, on through Frank’s moral falls with his two wives, back to an amusing stage pratfall that Frank takes during a moment of early innocence.

Wright cleverly uses a black rehearsal stage to create a memory play. Each scene is set through a transitional reprise of the show’s theme sung by the show’s version of a Greek chorus. These vocally powerful actors evoke the show’s ’60s and ’70s setting, ably assisted by Jaden Osbourne and Kenya Tousant’s “Mad Men” period costumes.

Mary Flynn is a successful writer who tells Frank to “never look back” but drowns her sorrows in liquor because she wants it to be the way it was when she and Frank and Charley were young and untried talents and she was in love with Frank.

Kim Glover as Mary is the show’s emotional heart and her reprise of “Not a Day Goes By” at the show’s end, which is the play’s beginning, poignantly reminds us of her future sorrows past.

Cast standout Ayler Evan as Charles Kringas stuns in the bitterly hilarious showstopper “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” He is Frank’s unwanted reminder of the man he could have been. When asked by a reporter which comes first, Frank’s music or Charley’s words, Charley responds bitterly, “The contract.”

Glenn Heath as Franklin Shepard emotionally centers the show and reminds us of the compromises we all make in life on the way to be who we are.

Jen Bacigalupi as Frank’s second wife and stage star Gussie Carnegie looks like she just stepped out of a 1930s “woman’s movie.”

She certainly plays the vamp to the hilt here, amusing but almost cartoonish. She engaged her character and the audience most deeply in her seduction of Frank during the stirring “Growing Up.”

Laurina Hendrickson is charming as Beth Spencer, Frank’s first wife. Bruce Block was surprisingly moving as producer and cuckolded husband, Joe Josephson. The show’s supporting cast was excellent.

The onstage band led by Shane Jensen under the musical direction of Susan Easter expertly supported the musically gifted actors.

Wendy Moss’s vocal direction shone in the actors’ performances.