Editing Merrily We Roll Along (play) (section)

==Critical response==
Critic [[Brooks Atkinson]] of ''The New York Times'' 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." ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]] ''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...."''<ref>{{cite news| title=Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan| date=October 8, 1934| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,769996,00.html?promoid=googlep| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020132953/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,769996,00.html?promoid=googlep| url-status=dead| archive-date=October 20, 2012| magazine=Time| access-date=May 28, 2019}}</ref>''

Despite good notices, the play was not a financial success, as the demands of the large-scale production made it expensive.<ref>{{cite journal| year=2002| url=http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/players/Merrily%20We%20Roll%20Along/merrily%20history%202.htm| title=A Backward Glance| last=Maslan| first=Laurence| website=Staples Players| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206103914/http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/players/Merrily%20We%20Roll%20Along/merrily%20history%202.htm| archive-date=2012-02-06 }}</ref> 
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.'"<ref>{{cite news| title=Theater; A Sondheim Musical Keeps Evolving| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/10/theater/review-theater-a-sondheim-musical-keeps-evolving.html| last=Richard| first=David| date=June 10, 1994| newspaper=The New York Times| access-date=May 28, 2019}}</ref>