Bounce and Road Show: A Comparative Analysis
(All historical background is from Look I Made A Hat, by Stephen Sondheim)
Circa 1953, Stephen Sondheim took an interest in a book by Alva Johnston entitled The Legendary Mizners, a biography of brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner, an architect and con man respectively (among other things) who caused the Florida real estate crash of 1925/26. Sort of kind of maybe. It's all pretty sensationalized, but historical accuracy is of no concern for a theatrician. Sondheim attempted to obtain the rights to adapt the book into a musical, but was beaten to the punch by David Merrick and Irving Berlin.
A few years later, while working on Gypsy (so, circa 1959), the Mizner brothers musical had not come to fruition, and Sondheim asked Merrick what had happened to it. It turns out that everyone involved lost interest, and Merrick had let his option on the book lapse.
Between 1960 and 1990, Stephen Sondheim was pretty much continuously working on other projects.
In 1993, having just finished the dark and gloomy Passion, and apparently wanting to do something light and fun (the very notion is laughable), he revisited the idea of a Mizner brothers musical, and pitched it to John Weidman, with whom he had worked on Pacific Ovetures and Assasssins. The project seemed like a good fit for the duo, as their previous two collaborations dealt with similar themes of economic and political history, and the deconstruction of the American Dream.
Possibly inspired by the fact that David Merrick and Irving Berlin had intended to cast Bob Hope as Wilson, Sondheim and Weidman envisioned the musical as a "Road" musical, inspired by the "Road" movies of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. The format befitted the plot of the book, which chronicled the brothers' assorted misadventures while jumping around from place to place. They decided to frame the show as a vaudeville performance, with fourth wall breaks and interludes throughout. The show, entitled Wise Guys received a reading in 1997 with Patrick Quinn and Victor Garber as Addison and Wilson respectively, and a second reading shortly after with Nathan Lane taking Quinn's place. In 1999, the show received a workshop directed by Sam Mendes, and starring Lane and Garber.
In the workshop, two problems became apparent. Sam Mendes felt the show was being too restricted by historical facts, and the vaudeville links made the show feel more like a catalogue of events rather than a cohesive drama. Nathan Lane felt that the characters were not "warm" enough until too late in the show, preventing the audience from really getting invested in them -- a familiar problem for Sondheim, as it was one that had plagued Merrily We Roll Along. In Wise Guys the problem was arguably worse. Merrily We Roll Along is about its central character becoming corrupted over time, meaning he has to be likeable at some point, but the fact that the show is told backwards means that that point doesn't occur until the second act. In Wise Guys though, Wilson (the character who most interested Sondheim) was a greedy, opportunistic con man who manipulated and discarded everyone, and stays that way throughout the whole narrative, never once becoming sympathetic.
After the workshop, Sondheim and Weidman got Hal Prince on board to help work on the show, and ultimately direct a production at the Kennedy Center in 2003, now starring Richard Kind and Howard McGillin. The show was now titled Bounce, and substantially reworked from the last version. The two most noticeable differences were that the vaudeville device was removed entirely and replaced with a simple framing device, and a new main character was added, Nellie, who would be a companion and foil to Wilson. The production received a cast recording, but went no further than that.
A few years later, the show went through another round of revisions, now under the direction of John Doyle. John Doyle is known for his minimalist productions and his penchant for compression, and sure enough, the most immediately apparent changes made for the next iteration were cutting the character of Nellie, and compressing the whole thing into one ninety-minute act. It was produced at the Public Theatre in 2008 under the title Road Show, starring Alexander Gemignani and Michael Cerveris, and that was that. It also received a cast recording.
A decade later, City Center Encores! (one of the best things in New York theater) mounted a revival of Road Show, largely unaltered, save the reading aloud of some stage directions to facilitate director Will Davis' concept of framing the show as a radio play. The production starred Brandon Uranowitz and Raul Esparza, and with the show fresh in the minds of Sondheim fanatics, I figured now was as good a time as any to really compare the two most extant versions of the show, Bounce and Road Show. Because I've always preferred the cast album of Bounce to Road Show, and not just because of the voices or quality of the music. And the more I think about the changes made, the more I'm convinced that the move from Bounce to Road Show was not so much an improvement as a lateral move. It didn't make the show better, it fundamentally changed what the show was about.
To begin with, Bounce starts with an overture, which Road Show excludes. This maybe seems like a small thing, but an overture (especially one like this with lots of brass) sets up the audience to expect a fairly classic-style musical comedy, which the title Bounce supports. Personally, I just like overtures.
Post-overture, Bounce begins with short comic scenes of Addison and Wilson, in separate locations, promptly dropping dead. They reunite in death, and are not altogether thrilled to see each other (particularly Addison). They sing the song "Bounce," which establishes the main overarching theme of the show, that of resillience. That no matter what failures the Mizners endure, they always bounce back -- apparently even now that they're dead. The song also establishes the conflict between the brothers in a comic fashion, by alluding to their various misadventures on earth.
The opening of Road Show is more bleak. It likewise begins with Addison promptly dying, but now it's the people around him who sing about him. The tune is the same, but the song is now called "Waste," as the various mourners lament Addison's squandered talent. Toward the end of the song, the also-dead Wilson enters, shoos everyone out, and reassures Addison that it's everyone else who was the waste. At the end of the song, Addison lashes out at Wilson for having ruined his life. The focus, instead of being on the more general theme of "bounce," is on the specific dynamic between the two brothers. Which is going to be a little bit of a problem down the line for two reasons. One, the theme of resilience is one that can be expressed in some way or another by every character and situation in the piece, whether good or bad, so long as they keep coming back. The theme of "brotherly love" (to use the title of a song that was written new for Road Show) only applies to the Mizners, and anything not directly related to them is a distraction. Secondly, Wilson is a highly unlikeable character, to a greater or lesser degree, in every version of the show. He can be entertaining to watch in the context of the "bounce" motif, but in the context of "brotherly love," he only invites the question, why does Addison keep tolerating him, and why does he seem to forgive him? We'll get back to that.
Framing devices established, both Bounce and Road Show proceed in the same way. At the end of the opening number, Addison and Wilson devolve into a childish squabble, and are broken up by their mother. We are now in flashback mode, and the show takes on the form of "how we got here." Papa Mizner is on his deathbed, and in both versions, he sings a song encouraging the brothers to seek their fortune. The main difference here is in tone. "Opportunity," the song in Bounce is a good deal more lively and comical, while "It's In Your Hands Now" in Road Show is more solemn. "It's In Your Hands Now" is also slightly distracting to Sondheim nerds, because the tune originates from a song that was cut from Assassins, but whose melody is still present in the Balladeer's sections of "Another National Anthem." But all that aside, the main difference here is one of tone, and that, at least, is internally consistent within each version of the show.
The family receives news of a gold rush in Alaska, and the two brothers set off to follow. This is roughly the same in both Bounce and Road Show. Once in Alaska, the brothers split. In Bounce, Addison digs outside while Wilson goes to file their claim. In Road Show, they both work the claim for a while, until Wilson goes to town to buy a new sleeping bag. It is at this point in Road Show that they sing "Brotherly Love," a song which does not have any counterpart in Bounce. The song's purpose is to try to build a legitimate bond between the brothers (which is not as necessary in the more comedy-focused Bounce, but might have been nice to have) but I can't help but feel it falls flat. One of the quintessential rules of theater is show, don't tell. Wilson and Addison remensicing about events from their childhood is not as effective as seeing them bond in real time would be. Road Show actually breaks this rule a few times where Bounce doesn't, I can only assume because telling, though less effective, is generally faster than showing, and they had to get it down to ninety minutes.
It is worth noting though that the circumstances in which Wilson leaves Addison in the cold in Bounce feel more morally dubious. In Road Show, his sleeping bag tears and he needs to get a new one. Fair enough. In Bounce, there is definitely an air of Wilson divying up the chores to give Addison the harder job -- as petty siblings might be known to do. So in one sense, in the scene where Road Show tries to build a bond between the brothers, Bounce drives a wedge between them from the start. But right now it's nothing too serious.
In either case, Wilson ends up in a saloon, and a group of gamblers try to talk him into a game of poker, thinking he'll be easy to win money off of. In Road Show, Wilson joins the game and that's that. In Bounce, this is where we meet Nellie.
Wilson initially refuses to join the game, and is actually devoted to doing the job he's come to do -- file the claim and get back to his brother. Nellie (who seems to be with the gamblers) intervenes, blocks the entrance to the saloon, and seduces Wilson into staying inside, where he ultimately joins the card game.
It is at this point I need to bring up Merrily We Roll Along again. As stated before, one of the central problems with Merrily We Roll Along has always been that its protagonist, Franklin Shepard, spends nearly the entire first act being thoroughly unsympathetic. When the musical was revived off-Broadway in 1994, it underwent some significant revisions, one of which was to add a song roughly midway through the first act, "Growing Up," that would serve to make Franklin a warmer character. In addition to the song being a somewhat heartfelt moment for Frank, it also expanded the role of Gussie, who, throughout Merrily acts as a corrupting influence on him. Having Gussie as an outside influence makes Franklin more sympathetic by proxy, because we see he is being manipulated. All it really does is shift the burden of unlikeability to another character. But as long Gussie isn't the protagonist, it's perfectly alright for her now to undergo the arc of being unlikable at the beginning of the show, and gradually becoming more sympathetic as we gain context. This was originally Franklin's arc, but since the audience couldn't get invested when that was the case, Gussie wears it better.
I bring this up because Nellie is essentially the same character as Gussie. One of the central problems with any iteration of the Mizner brothers musical is that Wilson is a pretty unlikeable character (which is exactly why Sondheim found him compelling). In Bounce, however, we have Nellie in this early scene acting as a corrupting influence. As with Franklin and Gussie, this makes Wilson more likeable by proxy. Fortunately, unlike Gussie, Nellie is more than just an unlikability-sponge, and I think she ultimately proves to be more likeable than Wilson by the end of the show.
(Here's the kciker: In the 1994 revival of Merrily We Roll Along that first made the stated changes, the role of Gussie was played by Michele Pawk, who would later go on to originate the role of Nellie in Bounce. How's that for typecasting?)
Nellie sings the song "What's Your Rush" (which, it goes without saying, is not in Road Show), and from here both Bounce and Road Show proceed in the same way. Wilson joins the poker game, wins easily, and develops a taste for gambling, while Addison sings a bitter and freezing reprise of "Gold," until he finds a nugget.
Wilson sings "The Game," which is roughly the same in both versions barring some mostly insubstantial lyric changes, with the main difference being that in Road Show the whole song is directed at Addison, whereas in Bounce only the latter part of it is. This is where Wilson adopts his philisophy toward life which will carry him through the show. Seize the day, the journey is more important than the destination, and all that jazz. He talks Addison into betting their claim against ten-thousand dollars, and wins. In Road Show, he wins uncomplicatedly. In Bounce, he shows that his opponent was cheating. The opponent pulls a gun, and Nellie shoots him with her own and gets Addison and Wilson to run off with the money. Nellie, in the confusion, pockets the claim.
The way this scene plays out in Bounce is a lot more action-packed and exciting than the one in Road Show, and thus befits the more musical-comedy feel of Bounce than the solemnity of Road Show. It does have a drawback though, and that's in the fact that it's a fast paced scene that can cause some confusion as to what Nellie's aim is. Sondheim specifies that it is Nellie who subtly indicates to Wilson that the poker player is cheating, but this could be easily missed. Likewise, in all the running and shooting, her pocketing the claim could be lost on the audience. All this needs to be explained again in dialogue later, which leaves Nellie's true allegience (if she has any) up in the air for quite some time. This early in the show, that is mildly troublesome, because as far as the audience knows, this character will never show up again.
Bounce takes a slight detour here that is skipped by Road Show. Addison and Wilson go back home with the ten grand, and they tell Mama Mizner the stories of their adventures. The song in this scene, "Next To You" (not present in Road Show) takes the form of Addison and Wilson essentially squabbling over their mother's approval. (She diplomatically refuses to play favorites, but Addison clearly doesn't appreciated being labeled the "sensible" one, since the "sensible" one is clearly less fun. This will come back later.) Frustrated by the circumstances, Addison takes half the winnings and sets out on his own.
In Road Show, that scene is not present, and instead, Wilson trades the claim for ownership of the saloon, which he hopes to develop. Addison, mad that Wilson didn't consult him first, and frustrated with his brother's recklessness, takes half the winnings and sets out on his own. This is probably the stronger segue, as Addison's frustration is much more visceral following "The Game" than it is following "Next To You." If Bounce wanted to reach a compromise, it would probably be to cut the "Next To You" scene and instead have a short dialogue scene just outside the saloon after the gunshots, where Wilson realizes he's lost the claim, and that spurs Addison's leaving.
In any case, both Bounce and Road Show at this point have the extended musical scene, "Addison's Trip," in which Addison travels around the world attempting various business ventures, all of which fail spectacularly. In early versions of this song, Addison was undone by his own incompetence, but in both Bounce and Road Show, he fails due to circumstances outside of his control. (In Bounce he is largely cheated or misled by others. In Road Show it's more in the vein of freak accidents.) There are minor lyric differences which speak to the different focuses of the show. For one thing, in the version in Road Show, Addison draws attention to his now strained relationship with Wilson.
In Bounce, "Addison's Trip" is largely focused on the adventures and failures themselves, suitably applying the "bounce" theme, as Addison keeps on bouncing back. In Road Show, the song focuses more on the souveniers he picks up at each destination, setting up the part at the end of the song where he decides to build a house to display them all, signifying his becoming an architect. I do think this somewhat weakens the song itself. It makes it largely irrelevent except as setup to the next thing. In Bounce the journey itself is important. In Road Show, only the destination is. And since it's kind of a long song (roughly eight minutes) the version of it that's all about the souveniers tends to feel more tedious, since it's all just a means to an end.
(Note: The version of "Addison's Trip" present in Road Show does contain a brief musical snippet from "Next To You," so that song is not entirely lost.)
What follows in Bounce is another scene not in Road Show. Wilson attempts to crash a high society function in New York, and runs into Addison. Addison is now officially an architect, and has a commission to build a gazebo for Mrs. Yerkes, the richest widow in New York. Wilson swipes Addison's invitation and enters, with his sights on Mrs. Yerkes, who turns out to be none other than Nellie. Nellie explains that she swiped the claim, sold it, went to New York, bought a fancy dress, and married Charlie Yerkes, who promptly died and left her lots of money.
Then there is a duet, "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened," which takes the part of a standard love duet in a standard musical comedy. The melody is pretty, but the lyrics are not. After some opening recitative, the first lyric of the song proper is as follows:
Circa 1953, Stephen Sondheim took an interest in a book by Alva Johnston entitled The Legendary Mizners, a biography of brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner, an architect and con man respectively (among other things) who caused the Florida real estate crash of 1925/26. Sort of kind of maybe. It's all pretty sensationalized, but historical accuracy is of no concern for a theatrician. Sondheim attempted to obtain the rights to adapt the book into a musical, but was beaten to the punch by David Merrick and Irving Berlin.
A few years later, while working on Gypsy (so, circa 1959), the Mizner brothers musical had not come to fruition, and Sondheim asked Merrick what had happened to it. It turns out that everyone involved lost interest, and Merrick had let his option on the book lapse.
Between 1960 and 1990, Stephen Sondheim was pretty much continuously working on other projects.
In 1993, having just finished the dark and gloomy Passion, and apparently wanting to do something light and fun (the very notion is laughable), he revisited the idea of a Mizner brothers musical, and pitched it to John Weidman, with whom he had worked on Pacific Ovetures and Assasssins. The project seemed like a good fit for the duo, as their previous two collaborations dealt with similar themes of economic and political history, and the deconstruction of the American Dream.
Possibly inspired by the fact that David Merrick and Irving Berlin had intended to cast Bob Hope as Wilson, Sondheim and Weidman envisioned the musical as a "Road" musical, inspired by the "Road" movies of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. The format befitted the plot of the book, which chronicled the brothers' assorted misadventures while jumping around from place to place. They decided to frame the show as a vaudeville performance, with fourth wall breaks and interludes throughout. The show, entitled Wise Guys received a reading in 1997 with Patrick Quinn and Victor Garber as Addison and Wilson respectively, and a second reading shortly after with Nathan Lane taking Quinn's place. In 1999, the show received a workshop directed by Sam Mendes, and starring Lane and Garber.
In the workshop, two problems became apparent. Sam Mendes felt the show was being too restricted by historical facts, and the vaudeville links made the show feel more like a catalogue of events rather than a cohesive drama. Nathan Lane felt that the characters were not "warm" enough until too late in the show, preventing the audience from really getting invested in them -- a familiar problem for Sondheim, as it was one that had plagued Merrily We Roll Along. In Wise Guys the problem was arguably worse. Merrily We Roll Along is about its central character becoming corrupted over time, meaning he has to be likeable at some point, but the fact that the show is told backwards means that that point doesn't occur until the second act. In Wise Guys though, Wilson (the character who most interested Sondheim) was a greedy, opportunistic con man who manipulated and discarded everyone, and stays that way throughout the whole narrative, never once becoming sympathetic.
After the workshop, Sondheim and Weidman got Hal Prince on board to help work on the show, and ultimately direct a production at the Kennedy Center in 2003, now starring Richard Kind and Howard McGillin. The show was now titled Bounce, and substantially reworked from the last version. The two most noticeable differences were that the vaudeville device was removed entirely and replaced with a simple framing device, and a new main character was added, Nellie, who would be a companion and foil to Wilson. The production received a cast recording, but went no further than that.
A few years later, the show went through another round of revisions, now under the direction of John Doyle. John Doyle is known for his minimalist productions and his penchant for compression, and sure enough, the most immediately apparent changes made for the next iteration were cutting the character of Nellie, and compressing the whole thing into one ninety-minute act. It was produced at the Public Theatre in 2008 under the title Road Show, starring Alexander Gemignani and Michael Cerveris, and that was that. It also received a cast recording.
A decade later, City Center Encores! (one of the best things in New York theater) mounted a revival of Road Show, largely unaltered, save the reading aloud of some stage directions to facilitate director Will Davis' concept of framing the show as a radio play. The production starred Brandon Uranowitz and Raul Esparza, and with the show fresh in the minds of Sondheim fanatics, I figured now was as good a time as any to really compare the two most extant versions of the show, Bounce and Road Show. Because I've always preferred the cast album of Bounce to Road Show, and not just because of the voices or quality of the music. And the more I think about the changes made, the more I'm convinced that the move from Bounce to Road Show was not so much an improvement as a lateral move. It didn't make the show better, it fundamentally changed what the show was about.
Alexander Gemignani and Michael Cerveris in Road Show
Post-overture, Bounce begins with short comic scenes of Addison and Wilson, in separate locations, promptly dropping dead. They reunite in death, and are not altogether thrilled to see each other (particularly Addison). They sing the song "Bounce," which establishes the main overarching theme of the show, that of resillience. That no matter what failures the Mizners endure, they always bounce back -- apparently even now that they're dead. The song also establishes the conflict between the brothers in a comic fashion, by alluding to their various misadventures on earth.
The opening of Road Show is more bleak. It likewise begins with Addison promptly dying, but now it's the people around him who sing about him. The tune is the same, but the song is now called "Waste," as the various mourners lament Addison's squandered talent. Toward the end of the song, the also-dead Wilson enters, shoos everyone out, and reassures Addison that it's everyone else who was the waste. At the end of the song, Addison lashes out at Wilson for having ruined his life. The focus, instead of being on the more general theme of "bounce," is on the specific dynamic between the two brothers. Which is going to be a little bit of a problem down the line for two reasons. One, the theme of resilience is one that can be expressed in some way or another by every character and situation in the piece, whether good or bad, so long as they keep coming back. The theme of "brotherly love" (to use the title of a song that was written new for Road Show) only applies to the Mizners, and anything not directly related to them is a distraction. Secondly, Wilson is a highly unlikeable character, to a greater or lesser degree, in every version of the show. He can be entertaining to watch in the context of the "bounce" motif, but in the context of "brotherly love," he only invites the question, why does Addison keep tolerating him, and why does he seem to forgive him? We'll get back to that.
Framing devices established, both Bounce and Road Show proceed in the same way. At the end of the opening number, Addison and Wilson devolve into a childish squabble, and are broken up by their mother. We are now in flashback mode, and the show takes on the form of "how we got here." Papa Mizner is on his deathbed, and in both versions, he sings a song encouraging the brothers to seek their fortune. The main difference here is in tone. "Opportunity," the song in Bounce is a good deal more lively and comical, while "It's In Your Hands Now" in Road Show is more solemn. "It's In Your Hands Now" is also slightly distracting to Sondheim nerds, because the tune originates from a song that was cut from Assassins, but whose melody is still present in the Balladeer's sections of "Another National Anthem." But all that aside, the main difference here is one of tone, and that, at least, is internally consistent within each version of the show.
The family receives news of a gold rush in Alaska, and the two brothers set off to follow. This is roughly the same in both Bounce and Road Show. Once in Alaska, the brothers split. In Bounce, Addison digs outside while Wilson goes to file their claim. In Road Show, they both work the claim for a while, until Wilson goes to town to buy a new sleeping bag. It is at this point in Road Show that they sing "Brotherly Love," a song which does not have any counterpart in Bounce. The song's purpose is to try to build a legitimate bond between the brothers (which is not as necessary in the more comedy-focused Bounce, but might have been nice to have) but I can't help but feel it falls flat. One of the quintessential rules of theater is show, don't tell. Wilson and Addison remensicing about events from their childhood is not as effective as seeing them bond in real time would be. Road Show actually breaks this rule a few times where Bounce doesn't, I can only assume because telling, though less effective, is generally faster than showing, and they had to get it down to ninety minutes.
It is worth noting though that the circumstances in which Wilson leaves Addison in the cold in Bounce feel more morally dubious. In Road Show, his sleeping bag tears and he needs to get a new one. Fair enough. In Bounce, there is definitely an air of Wilson divying up the chores to give Addison the harder job -- as petty siblings might be known to do. So in one sense, in the scene where Road Show tries to build a bond between the brothers, Bounce drives a wedge between them from the start. But right now it's nothing too serious.
In either case, Wilson ends up in a saloon, and a group of gamblers try to talk him into a game of poker, thinking he'll be easy to win money off of. In Road Show, Wilson joins the game and that's that. In Bounce, this is where we meet Nellie.
Wilson initially refuses to join the game, and is actually devoted to doing the job he's come to do -- file the claim and get back to his brother. Nellie (who seems to be with the gamblers) intervenes, blocks the entrance to the saloon, and seduces Wilson into staying inside, where he ultimately joins the card game.
It is at this point I need to bring up Merrily We Roll Along again. As stated before, one of the central problems with Merrily We Roll Along has always been that its protagonist, Franklin Shepard, spends nearly the entire first act being thoroughly unsympathetic. When the musical was revived off-Broadway in 1994, it underwent some significant revisions, one of which was to add a song roughly midway through the first act, "Growing Up," that would serve to make Franklin a warmer character. In addition to the song being a somewhat heartfelt moment for Frank, it also expanded the role of Gussie, who, throughout Merrily acts as a corrupting influence on him. Having Gussie as an outside influence makes Franklin more sympathetic by proxy, because we see he is being manipulated. All it really does is shift the burden of unlikeability to another character. But as long Gussie isn't the protagonist, it's perfectly alright for her now to undergo the arc of being unlikable at the beginning of the show, and gradually becoming more sympathetic as we gain context. This was originally Franklin's arc, but since the audience couldn't get invested when that was the case, Gussie wears it better.
I bring this up because Nellie is essentially the same character as Gussie. One of the central problems with any iteration of the Mizner brothers musical is that Wilson is a pretty unlikeable character (which is exactly why Sondheim found him compelling). In Bounce, however, we have Nellie in this early scene acting as a corrupting influence. As with Franklin and Gussie, this makes Wilson more likeable by proxy. Fortunately, unlike Gussie, Nellie is more than just an unlikability-sponge, and I think she ultimately proves to be more likeable than Wilson by the end of the show.
(Here's the kciker: In the 1994 revival of Merrily We Roll Along that first made the stated changes, the role of Gussie was played by Michele Pawk, who would later go on to originate the role of Nellie in Bounce. How's that for typecasting?)
Nellie sings the song "What's Your Rush" (which, it goes without saying, is not in Road Show), and from here both Bounce and Road Show proceed in the same way. Wilson joins the poker game, wins easily, and develops a taste for gambling, while Addison sings a bitter and freezing reprise of "Gold," until he finds a nugget.
Wilson sings "The Game," which is roughly the same in both versions barring some mostly insubstantial lyric changes, with the main difference being that in Road Show the whole song is directed at Addison, whereas in Bounce only the latter part of it is. This is where Wilson adopts his philisophy toward life which will carry him through the show. Seize the day, the journey is more important than the destination, and all that jazz. He talks Addison into betting their claim against ten-thousand dollars, and wins. In Road Show, he wins uncomplicatedly. In Bounce, he shows that his opponent was cheating. The opponent pulls a gun, and Nellie shoots him with her own and gets Addison and Wilson to run off with the money. Nellie, in the confusion, pockets the claim.
The way this scene plays out in Bounce is a lot more action-packed and exciting than the one in Road Show, and thus befits the more musical-comedy feel of Bounce than the solemnity of Road Show. It does have a drawback though, and that's in the fact that it's a fast paced scene that can cause some confusion as to what Nellie's aim is. Sondheim specifies that it is Nellie who subtly indicates to Wilson that the poker player is cheating, but this could be easily missed. Likewise, in all the running and shooting, her pocketing the claim could be lost on the audience. All this needs to be explained again in dialogue later, which leaves Nellie's true allegience (if she has any) up in the air for quite some time. This early in the show, that is mildly troublesome, because as far as the audience knows, this character will never show up again.
A scene from Bounce with Michele Pawk, Howard McGillin, and company
Bounce takes a slight detour here that is skipped by Road Show. Addison and Wilson go back home with the ten grand, and they tell Mama Mizner the stories of their adventures. The song in this scene, "Next To You" (not present in Road Show) takes the form of Addison and Wilson essentially squabbling over their mother's approval. (She diplomatically refuses to play favorites, but Addison clearly doesn't appreciated being labeled the "sensible" one, since the "sensible" one is clearly less fun. This will come back later.) Frustrated by the circumstances, Addison takes half the winnings and sets out on his own.
In Road Show, that scene is not present, and instead, Wilson trades the claim for ownership of the saloon, which he hopes to develop. Addison, mad that Wilson didn't consult him first, and frustrated with his brother's recklessness, takes half the winnings and sets out on his own. This is probably the stronger segue, as Addison's frustration is much more visceral following "The Game" than it is following "Next To You." If Bounce wanted to reach a compromise, it would probably be to cut the "Next To You" scene and instead have a short dialogue scene just outside the saloon after the gunshots, where Wilson realizes he's lost the claim, and that spurs Addison's leaving.
In any case, both Bounce and Road Show at this point have the extended musical scene, "Addison's Trip," in which Addison travels around the world attempting various business ventures, all of which fail spectacularly. In early versions of this song, Addison was undone by his own incompetence, but in both Bounce and Road Show, he fails due to circumstances outside of his control. (In Bounce he is largely cheated or misled by others. In Road Show it's more in the vein of freak accidents.) There are minor lyric differences which speak to the different focuses of the show. For one thing, in the version in Road Show, Addison draws attention to his now strained relationship with Wilson.
In Bounce, "Addison's Trip" is largely focused on the adventures and failures themselves, suitably applying the "bounce" theme, as Addison keeps on bouncing back. In Road Show, the song focuses more on the souveniers he picks up at each destination, setting up the part at the end of the song where he decides to build a house to display them all, signifying his becoming an architect. I do think this somewhat weakens the song itself. It makes it largely irrelevent except as setup to the next thing. In Bounce the journey itself is important. In Road Show, only the destination is. And since it's kind of a long song (roughly eight minutes) the version of it that's all about the souveniers tends to feel more tedious, since it's all just a means to an end.
(Note: The version of "Addison's Trip" present in Road Show does contain a brief musical snippet from "Next To You," so that song is not entirely lost.)
What follows in Bounce is another scene not in Road Show. Wilson attempts to crash a high society function in New York, and runs into Addison. Addison is now officially an architect, and has a commission to build a gazebo for Mrs. Yerkes, the richest widow in New York. Wilson swipes Addison's invitation and enters, with his sights on Mrs. Yerkes, who turns out to be none other than Nellie. Nellie explains that she swiped the claim, sold it, went to New York, bought a fancy dress, and married Charlie Yerkes, who promptly died and left her lots of money.
Then there is a duet, "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened," which takes the part of a standard love duet in a standard musical comedy. The melody is pretty, but the lyrics are not. After some opening recitative, the first lyric of the song proper is as follows:
WILSON: You are the best thing that ever has happened to me.
NELLIE: Bullshit.
Which gets a lot of laughter from the audience. The song is characterized by a contrast between the soaring melody and the snarky banter between the two people singing it. The song is funny because it is wry, and there is an underlying tension to it because we know both Wilson and Nellie have con artist tendencies, and both could easily be trying to swindle the other at this moment. In the middle of the song, Wilson proposes to Nellie, and she accepts.
This song probably proved to be the most appealing in Bounce, and even though Nellie and this scene were cut entirely from Road Show, the song was worked back in later as a duet for Addison and Hollis. Unfortunately, the primary reason the song worked in Bounce was because it was witty and sarcastic and came from the characters singing it. But Addison and Hollis are earnest characters. The snark in the song no longer applies, and so the lyric was rewritten to be far more generic. The song as it stands in Road Show (barring its opening recit) could easily be lifted out of the show and sung by any generic couple in any generic musical. It lacks the wit that made the song funny, and lacks the bite that amplified the sweetness of the tune. In addition, the way that the song is included in Road Show accomplishes nothing. In Bounce the song progresses the plot. Before the song, Wilson and Nellie are not engaged. After the song, they are, which also cements Nellie's formal introduction to the rest of the plot. In Road Show, the only purpose the song has is to give the main couple (Addison and Hollis) a rhapsodic duet, never mind that the song immediately follows the rhapsodic duet that they already had, "You," which also advanced the plot. "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened" could be cut right out of Road Show and no one would notice.
This scene in Bounce also shows us why Nellie works better as a character than Gussie did in Merrily We Roll Along. Gussie remains an unlikeability sponge for most of Merrily We Roll Along, and doesn't really start to get moments of sympathy until midway through the second act. But at this point in Bounce, Nellie doesn't need to be an unlikeability sponge to make Wilson more likeable by proxy. In fact, just the opposite. Nellie makes Wilson more likeable by giving him a companion who is his equal in wits. Part of what makes Wilson so unlikeable is how easily he outsmarts and walks all over everyone. It makes him obnoxious. By making sure there is a character who can match him on his own ground, his personality is tempered, and that makes him more bearable. Dropping Nellie from the show also loses this dampening effect.
Wilson withdraws Nellie's commision for the gazebo, and commissions Addison to design a house instead. And here we meet up with Road Show again. In Road Show, Mrs. Yerkes is still a character, though unrelated to any other character in the show. She commissions a house from Addison, but Wilson comes in, marries her, and keeps stalling the payment for the house. (So, not only is Wilson not tempered by Nellie in Road Show, he's also much more actively a jerk toward Addison.)
In both Bounce and Road Show, what comes next is a New York montage sequence. Wilson becomes the manager of a middleweight prizefighter, invests in a Broadway play, and dopes a horse. In Bounce, the song is linked with segments of Wilson and Nellie singing snippets of "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened," which keep getting interrupted by reporters and other situations as Nellie becomes increasingly frustrated with Wilson's reckless frivolity.
(Note: In Bounce, this song, "I Love This Town," was accompanied by a directorial concept. Specifically, that it would exist in two times at once. The duet reprises would take place on Wilson and Nellie's wedding night, and the interruptions would be symbolic. Sondheim contends that the audience found this staging confusing, which may well have been the case. But I will add my two cents and say that, when I first listened to the song, devoid of any visuals, it made perfect sense to me, and I really do think the song stands up on its own. If the staging muddied things, that doesn't necessarily mean the song is wrong.)
In Road Show, the same events happen, but, because there's no Nellie, the linking segments had to be changed. Instead, the song is tied together with brief scenes of Addison and Mama Mizner reading about Wilson's exploits in the papers, while Wilson periodically says he's going to visit, and then never does. The focus here is to increase Addison's frustration with Wilson, especially as he feels more and more like the second-favorite son, what with Mama Mizner kvelling over Wilson's various adventures. The fact that it raises tensions between the brothers so much is kind of a mixed blessing, because while on the one hand, that's kind of the point of Road Show as opposed to Bounce, on the other hand, it serves to make Wilson more and more unlikeable, which makes him less enjoyable to watch on stage.
The song that makes this sequence is different in both versions. In Bounce it is called "I Love This Town," and is a fast-paced song with all the scenarios constantly interrupting each other, and toward the end playing on top of each other in a cacophony of wild misadventures. In Road Show, the song, called "That Was A Year," is divided more cleanly into formal verses, with each verse being sung by someone else about the adventure they enjoyed with Wilson after the fact. Again, it's telling, not showing. The music itself is less hectic and exciting, and doesn't sell the idea that Wilson is "King of New York" the way the song in Bounce does. And, ironically, the song in Road Show is longer. In basically every respect, I think "I Love This Town" is the stronger song for the circumstance.
After the New York sequence, both Bounce and Road Show cut to Addison tending to Mama Mizner, who is on her deathbed. She sings the song "Isn't He Something," which comes across as rather passive-agressive to Addison, and promptly dies. Wilson enters, a drunk mess after Nellie/Mrs. Yerkes has thrown him out, and Addison angrily lashes out at him, resolving once again to make it on his own. In Bounce he sings an angry reprise of the title song which ends the first act. In Road Show, we go straight to the next scene.
Since Bounce is in two acts, it requires a second-act opener. It is a reprise of "The Game" sung by Addison, Wilson, and Nellie, all from separate locations, as they cut their losses and dismiss their former companions. (Again, that theme of resilience.) It includes in it a wistful reprise of "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened," and it's probably my favorite song in Bounce, for no particular reason.
After this point, the differences between Bounce and Road Show become far less substantive. Addison goes to Florida after hearing of a land boom there, and on the train meets Hollis Bessemer, who explains his plans to construct an artist's colony in the Palm Beach area ("Talent"), intending to ask his aunt for funding. Hollis' aunt commisions a house from Addison, and soon every wealthy dowager in the area wants a house build by Addison Mizner. This occurs in a montage during which time Addison and Hollis also become an offical couple with an official rhapsodic duet ("You"). Road Show incorporated "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened" at this point, as stated before.
In Bounce, once of Addison's clients in Florida is the Comtesse de Chevigny, who turns out to be Nellie again, courtesy of another widowhood, just going to show that everyone is better off without Wilson. Of course this is not in Road Show.
Wilson shows up out of the blue, and tries to convince Addison to build a city. Addison at this point is hardened to Wilson's schemes, but Hollis isn't, so Wilson manages to win Addison over by first winning over Hollis. (In Bounce, Nellie also gets involved.) Wilson proposes Boca Raton as the location for "Addison's City" and gets right to work creating a real estate bubble. which duly pops. Hollis feels used and gets into a fight with Addison. Nellie, also fed up with the Mizners, storms off with Hollis.
(There is another difference between the versions in that part. In Bounce, the bubble pops on its own as bubbles do, and the song that accompanies the scene, "Boca Raton," is focused on the buying and selling of lots of land. In Road Show, the song focuses on Wilson's increasingly extravegant marketing pitches, which Hollis becomes increasingly uncomfortable with, causing him to ultimately pull the plug himself. Which I personally think weakens the scenario, by making the crash out to be Hollis' fault rather than the inevitable result of Wilson's perpetual scheming.)
Finally, Addison snaps at Wilson, yelling at him to "Get Out Of My Life." This song is largely the same in both versions, but in Road Show the lyric is softened to be nicer to Wilson, which to me feels unearned, for the same reason as always: Wilson is incredibly unlikeable. In Bounce it is refreshing to hear him get told off with no mercy. In Road Show, which makes Wilson even less likeable throughout, Addison apparently forgives him for no stated reason. The final line of the song, in which Addison exclaims "Alright, yes, I love you, and worse, I deserve you!" is filled with spite in Bounce, at which point Addison angrily cuts off the song with spoken shouting. In Road Show, the line becomes "Alright, yes, I love you, I always have loved you, does that make us even, does that make you happy?" as the song wimpers out. The point of Road Show is that the brothers, for better or for worse, are inexorably tied together. Whether this ending feels earned is a judgement call. I don't think it quite makes it. Bounce offers the same frustration with Wilson's character, but because the central theme of the show is not "Brotherly Love," but instead "Bounce," it doesn't get in the way of the show having a satisfactory conclusion.
According to Sondheim, the reason he and Weidman dropped the "Bounce" element was because they realized the relationship between the brothers was the theme they really wanted to zero in on. Which is a perfectly justified reason for making these revisions. That said, "Bounce" is an easier theme to convey than "Brotherly Love," and so on its own merits, Bounce is arguably the better show. But it's just not the show Sondheim and Weidman actually wanted to write.
The brothers snap back to the framing device (quite humorously in Bounce) where they are both dead, sing a short reprise of the opening number (whichever that might be), and both shows contain the following exchange, which I think adequately sums up the whole journey of the Mizner brothers musical from Wise Guys to Bounce to Road Show:
WILSON: You know what that is, don't you? That's the road to opportunity.
ADDISON: It's the road to eternity.
WILSON: The greatest opportunity of all. Sooner or later, we're bound to get it right.
Wilson and Addison Mizner
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