“It’s our time, breathe it in,” the friends Frank ( Jonathan Groff), Charley (Daniel Radcliffe), and Mary (Lindsay Mendez) sing ecstatically at the end of “Merrily We Roll Along,” Stephen Sondheim’s much beleaguered musical about three artists and their deteriorating relationships and ambitions. Time in the musical goes backward: we first meet the trio during their lowest point (basically, their forties), so the youthful optimism of those last, hopeful lines is meant to sound false. In this “Merrily,” though, it rings sincere, as if claiming a long-delayed triumph on the musical’s behalf. Anticipation for the new production has been frantic. “I heard the whole run sold out in eight minutes,” someone whispered behind me at the New York Theatre Workshop, as we waited for the show to begin.
Denne historien er fra December 26, 2022-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra December 26, 2022-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.
