Critical Response
New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote: "After this declaration of ethics, it will be impossible to dismiss Mr Kaufman and Mr Hart as clever jesters with an instinct for the stage." Despite good notices, the play was not a financial success, as the demands of the large-scale production made it expensive. Time Magazine wrote, "Superbly staged...; superbly acted by the biggest cast seen in a legitimate Broadway production this season, Merrily We Roll Along is an amusing and affecting study...."
In retrospect, the Times has noted that the play suffers from a "Depression sensibility. The notion that you can't get ahead without selling out is one that held particular appeal.... There was something both morally and politically suspect about worldly fortune at a time when, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his 1937 inaugural address, one-third of the nation was 'ill housed, ill clad, ill nourished.'"
Read more about this topic: Merrily We Roll Along (play)
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