Director Maria Friedman Made Sure There Were Plenty of Jonathan Groff Closeups in the Merrily We Roll Along Pro-Shot

This actually isn’t the first time that Friedman has directed a film of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical. When Friedman first directed Merrily in London in 2013, that London production was filmed and released. So this new filmed version of Merrily came together relatively easily for Friedman, and quickly; it did recoup its $12 million investment, after all.

“We knew we weren’t going to recast,” Friedman explains. “These people had given us two years of their life already. We wanted to do it a month before the run ended. And it took us two weeks to get the financing, and then we got the green light, and we did it.” 

Friedman and the cinematographers sat down for two weeks prior to filming to storyboard the entire shoot. Filming commenced over three days, using four to five cameras (depending on the day). But what Friedman noticed right off the bat, looking back on the footage, was that the “wide shot had no energy to it,” noting, “It’s not a choreographic show. I only had one set for the entire thing.” So instead of focusing on the set or locations, Friedman focused on emotional and narrative clarity. She employed a visual artist to create on-screen graphics noting the time and place, in various styles, to help orient the audience since the story does take place over 20 years and spans Los Angeles to New York.

Friedman also kept the camera focused on the actors—after all, it was this cast that was the key to the revival’s success. That is why the first shot of this pro-shot is something that audiences might have seen from a distance sitting at the Hudson, but now they can view close up: Jonathan Groff as seen through a window, walking through a doorway, while Leana Rae Concepcion sings the first line of the musical, “Yesterday is done, see the pretty countryside.”

“It was always Jonathan’s memory play [to me],” says Friedman of her conception of the show. “So I needed to make sure—and interestingly, if you’ve read the script, you would have read that the ensemble comes out and then everybody else [the leads] comes out. I took that away. I took them into his memory. So when you hear the voices, you hear them echoed. So they’re just echoes of his memory. In film, I was obviously able to do it with the clarity, because there’s only one person you’re looking at, which is him.” (And for those reading who have not seen it, the fact that this version is a memory play comes back to gratifying and moving effect at the end.)

But that’s what Friedman wants audiences to truly appreciate about this filmed version of Merrily, the actors’ performances—the nuanced expressions and reactions the viewers might have missed sitting far back at the Hudson. It’s the thing that you can get on film that you can’t get in a theatre: close-ups. Friedman even changed the microphone placements so audiences wouldn’t be distracted by the actors’ forehead mics. 

The director’s particularly proud of the editing work on “Franklin Shepard, Inc,” the fast-paced patter song sung by Daniel Radcliffe. On stage, audiences may have just been focused on Radcliffe giving his Tony-winning, tongue-twisting performance. But on film, Friedman directs the viewer to Radcliffe singing and to Groff’s silent reactions—of shock, betrayal, and then anger.

Even though the song is a solo, to Friedman, “that’s a duet. It’s a love song of yearning, hope, longing for his great friend.”

Previous to Friedman’s version of Merrily, the musical was considered one of Broadway’s most notorious flops; its original 1981 production closed after just 16 performances. But Friedman has loved the musical ever since she played Mary, one of the three leads, in a U.K. production. While critics originally derided Merrily for its confusing structure, 20 years in the lives of three friends and told in reverse chronology, Friedman has loved the musical for decades. “I never, ever got tired of it. I mean, I could work on it forever,” she says with visible affection.