‘Merrily We Roll Along’
Rent or buy it on most major platforms.
Two alums of the hit revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” are currently intersecting on Broadway: Daniel Radcliffe just opened in the solo “Every Brilliant Thing” and Jonathan Groff is leaving “Just in Time” on March 29. Maria Friedman’s production of “Merrily” was such a critical and commercial blockbuster that the appearance of a filmed version is not entirely surprising. While the capture (also directed by Friedman) does not come close to the show’s live electricity, it is an excellent document of theatrical lightning in a bottle.
For a deep dive into the original Broadway production, which opened and closed in November 1981, Lonny Price’s documentary “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened” is obligatory viewing. Price, who played Charley, made the film (released in 2016) when the musical had acquired a reputation as an unstageable flop. Revisiting that genesis in light of the recent triumph is both illuminating and bittersweet.
‘The Importance of Being Earnest’
Oscar Wilde’s drawing-room comedy about the pursuit of romance and social status is filled with more bon mots than most playwrights can manage in an entire career, and it is all over the internet this month. National Theater at Home is making its 2024 revival available for free through March 18 on YouTube (and after that you can rent it on the National’s platform). Directed by Max Webster (“Life of Pi”), this exuberant, queered-up staging stars Ncuti Gatwa (“Doctor Who”) as the flamboyant dandy Algernon and Sharon D Clarke (“Death of a Salesman,” “Caroline, or Change”) as the formidable Lady Bracknell — whose outfits The Guardian described as looking like “the best of ‘Bake Off’’s showstoppers.”
Another production is coming live from the Alley Theater in Houston on March 27-29 via the League of Live Stream Theater; Rob Melrose’s production stars Candy Buckley as Lady Bracknell (whose outfits do not look like they’re out of “Barbecue Showdown”).
Fans who want to compare and contrast can stream a third outing: It won’t take much poking around YouTube to find a capture of the Roundabout Theater Company’s critically acclaimed 2011 revival, in which Brian Bedford was a Lady Bracknell for the ages.
‘Take a Banana for the Ride’
On March 24, Netflix is adding to its crowded comedy shelf by releasing a capture of Jeff Ross’s debut Broadway solo, filmed toward the end of the run last September. Ross is famous for his fantastic roasts, but in “Take a Banana for the Ride,” the comedian mostly explored his family and upbringing. As Laura Collins-Hughes wrote in her review for The Times, “This is a gentle tough-guy show, at once brash and sentimental: soft underbelly exposed, but talons out, too.” Mind you, Ross did end each performance by reverting to his Roastmaster General persona and roaming the Nederlander Theater’s aisles to target select audience members — and it was hilarious.
‘The First Annual 54 Below Gala’
As a particularly intimate art form, cabaret is well suited to streaming, so it’s felicitous that 54 Below offers live feeds of select shows. A big one this month happens on March 23 with a gala featuring a pretty impressive bunch of performers: Darren Criss, Ariana DeBose, Jeremy Jordan, Norm Lewis, Marilyn Maye and Krysta Rodriguez will be there, alongside the fan-favorite songwriters Joe Iconis and Marc Shaiman (whose new memoir, “Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories From a Sore Winner,” is an addictive page-turner for musical-theater fans).
‘My Dinner With André’
Stream it on HBO Max and Tubi.
With André Gregory helming the new Wallace Shawn play “What We Did Before Our Moth Days” Off Broadway, you might want to revisit the two men’s most famous collaboration: “My Dinner With André,” a decades-old film-length conversation that they co-wrote and starred in under Louis Malle’s direction. Gregory and Shawn are sitting face to face at a restaurant table, just chatting — though of course it’s not “just” chatting with these two. They discuss their tastes and travels, as well as their considerations on art and the world. The movie remains as distinctive (and divisive) now as it was upon its 1981 release. “The two actors talk and talk — and what they have to say often seems banal,” James Atlas wrote in The New York Times in 1982. “Yet it is that very banality that so appeals to us.”
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