As I cheered Daniel Radcliffe’s performance of “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” in Maria Friedman’s brilliant no-frills production of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, I thought about what made the performance work so effectively. I have seen Radcliffe on stage in a variety of roles. For all his film fame, he is a charismatic stage animal. His big number, “Franklin Shepard, Inc.”, is one of those Sondheim word-filled patter songs depicting a character having a meltdown. Charlie, Radcliffe’s character, goes on a tv interview show with his songwriting collaborator and best friend, Franklin, and delivers a musical tirade on how Franklin has given up his art and is now only interested in money. The song is anger channeled into humor. It is also cruel—a public shaming of his closest friend. That’s a lot to capture in a three-minute song—a challenge for any musical theatre actor. Radcliffe nailed it and did so without ever getting up out of the chair he was sitting on. Everything he did was about and for Sondheim’s words and music. The result was a well-deserved deafening, prolonged ovation. One must also acknowledge Jonathan Groff’s performance as Franklin who was sitting next to Charlie, supposedly on national television, during this musical tirade. Without moving a muscle, Groff made us aware that the temperature was dropping in that room—that his friendship with Charlie is over. It’s a strange thing to say about a musical production, but the great thing about this production of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG is its economy. There isn’t an unnecessary gesture. All the focus is on the characters and on Sondheim’s words and music. 

            The night before I watched Annaleigh Ashford ruin number after number in Thomas Kail’s revival of SWEENEY TODD by turning everything into schtick. Case in point: “A Little Priest,” the witty number that ends Act I. Mrs. Lovett has just thought up a way to dispose of the corpses Sweeney is driven to produce. They will become the meat in her meat pies. Sweeney’s delight in her ingenuity (and amorality) give him his only moment of joy in the entire show. He and she imagine the various types they will kill and cook (for instance “Shepherd’s pie peppered with genuine shepherd”). Sweeney sings: “The history of the world, my sweet, is who gets eaten and who gets to eat.” He and Mrs. Lovett are like naughty children thinking up a prank. Of course, the song is both funny and horrifying. Josh Groban (the best Sweeney I have ever seen or heard and I’ve seen and heard a bunch of them beginning with the first, Len Cariou), tried to stay in character, which was difficult with Ashford turning the song into a schtickfest. With all her clowning around and efforts to make Groban laugh, it was impossible to pay attention to the clever lyrics. Ashfrd doesn’t really have enough voice to sing Mrs. Lovett and didn’t seem much interested in projecting a character. She just wanted to. make the audience  (and, if possible, Groban) laugh. If Groban was the best Sweeney I have seen, Ashford was the worst Mrs. Lovett. My undergraduate. Mrs. Lovetts had more of a sense of character. Yes, many in the audience loved her antics, but they had little if anything to do with portraying a character or a situation. Mrs. Lovett has to get frightening in the second act. Ashford couldn’t because she had worked too hard at being a clown. 

            Thomas Kail’s production looked pretty much like every other large-scale SWEENEY TODD. The large orchestra allowed us to savor Jonathan Tunick’s inventive orchestrations. Unfortunately, the lovers Joanna and Anthony were mediocre singers. Anthony’s big ballad “Joanna” is not easy to sing and some of the scoring is quite brassy. Obviously Sondheim and Tunick expected Anthony to have a strong voice. This Anthony sounded like he was in a high school production. Still, after a series of small-scale productions, it was exciting to see this classic given the kind of large-scale production it deserves.

            The high point of the new Stephen Sondheim-David Ives play with songs, HERE WE ARE, comes when David Hyde Pierce, playing a bishop, sings a song about how he wishes he were in any other occupation. The song is the last of Sondheim’s great patter songs. Pierce, another fine performer who knows that less is more, allows us in the audience to savor Sondheim’s wit. Pierce is the master of the light touch. I would love to have seen him in a Noel Coward play. He doesn’t have to work hard to be funny. He lets Sondheim’s lyrics do most of the work.

            HERE WE ARE is an adaptation of two Luis Bunuel films. The first act, based on THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE, gives us a group of wealthy people trying to find someplace to eat. No restaurant seems to have any food. Waiters are surly or suicidal. At one eatery, a corpse is laid out on a banquet table. Is he about to become a meal for the guests? In the second act, based on THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, the group is invited to dinner by a sexy South American diplomat but for some reason they cannot leave the room. David Ives, a master of surrealism, has written a consistently funny script. Sondheim finished much of the scoring for the first act but, past an opening number, the second act is without songs. Thanks to a superb cast, clever direction by Joe Mantello and brilliant sets by David Zinn, HERE WE ARE is a constant delight despite being unfinished musically.

            With three productions running and SWEENEY TODD and MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG breaking box office records, Stephen Sondheim’s day has come. The audiences at all three shows had a large percentage of under 30s. They were listening attentively and relishing the witty lyrics and beautiful tunes. Sondheim’s irony and bittersweet vision of human relationships seems more timely now that when his shows were first produced. And finally, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG has gotten a production that shows its richness.