Merrily We Roll Along, a musical written by Steven Sondheim, is running this weekend in Wilder Main.
The story of a composer, a writer and a lyricist, Merrily takes a strange twist from the beginning. The play moves backwards chronologically, so the audience knows the end of the story from the beginning of the performance.
The prologue goes "How does it happen/ Once it was all so clear/How does it start to go/ Does it slip away slow/ So you never even know it's happening."
Director junior Kristen Schultz thinks the musical is "appropriate to college-aged students. It's about dreams and friendships and how important they are at this age."
"I don't see how you can sit through it without doing some serious thinking about yourself," said sophomore Jeremy Ellison-Gladstone, who plays Charlie, the lyricist.
"The end of the play is really hopeful," said sophomore Ben Grubb, who plays Frank, the composer, "but that makes it poignant because you know what's going to happen."
Once it was all so clear: Actors from Merrily work through a scene in this weekend's play.
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 10; November 22, 1996
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