Maria Friedman (‘Merrily We Roll Along’ director) cracks the code of the beloved musical by filling it ‘top to bottom with love’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“I wasn’t prepared for how much it really meant to me,” admits Maria Friedman on her first ever Tony Award nomination for directing the hit revival of “Merrily We Roll Along.” This recognition serves as a capstone on a decades-long relationship with the “genius musical.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.
Friedman, who also works as an actor, starred in a UK production of “Merrily” in 1992 under the guidance of creators Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. She would return to this show when she first tried her hand at directing. During a break between acting gigs, she recalls her husband saying that she would “go nutty” without a project to dig into. So, she accepted an offer to direct and took to it immediately. “It was like when something really fits you properly,” reveals Friedman, “it didn’t feel complicated.”
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The performance background that Friedman brings to a rehearsal room is an asset for working on a show with such complex characters. “It does make me investigate from a very detailed perspective because when you are playing a part, you have to interrogate every inch of it,” she explains. “I definitely have an empathy with what the process is for an actor, that each person has a different process… it’s like people cook at different speeds.” She is especially interested in helping push an actor beyond their immediate performance choices. “It’s a conversation,” she describes, “it’s how to really bring somebody to the best of themselves. There’s always a little bit more. And a great director will give you, encourage you to that little bit more that is not always easy to get to, because you’ve put it away somewhere.”
Perhaps this first-hand insight is why critics and industry members declared in unison that Friedman had cracked the code on the notoriously problematic musical. One that Sondheim and Furth tinkered with for years in an effort to get it right. But the director is quick to point out that while it’s “lovely” to hear folks say that she’s solved the “Merrily” puzzle, she isn’t the writer.
WATCH Lindsay Mendez video interview: ‘Merrily We Roll Along’
Friedman does, however, point to three advantages. First is a 40 year history working with Sondheim. Second is the understanding that the composer believed his songs were intrinsically linked with the story of his musicals. And thirdly, Friedman reveals: “he was very hurt by people not understanding that all he ever did is write love songs…he said, if you pick any song, you’ll see the center of it is love, wanting love, missing love, hoping for love, lost love. Anything. And sometimes all of those things, all in tandem, changing over a period of a song.” So her approach to this musical was that it was filled “top to bottom with love,” and in this case, the specific fluid love found in friendships.
Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliffe portray the trio of friends at the heart of “Merrily We Roll Along,” and Friedman has directed them all to Tony nominations. According to her, a great Sondheim performance is the result of not trying to be more clever than the maestro himself, but by filling in all the space he has left for actor’s to inhabit. “I want to fill the gaps he left us on purpose, not a gap that he left because he hadn’t written it,” she describes, “He left it because he’s a proper theater maker. He goes: this is the shape, this is the narrative. Now what do you bring?”
Sondheim saw and loved Friedman’s London staging of “Merrily We Roll Along,” but sadly passed away before he could see this Broadway mounting turn into a box office juggernaut. “That’s something he wanted all his life,” says the director, “He wanted musicals to be popular and seen by as many people as possible…He wanted a hit.”
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