“Carousel”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - August 2011

In 1999 Time Magazine voted Carousel the Best Musical of the 20th Century. While I disagree and give top honors to Cabaret, I could easily go for a tie between Carousel and The Threepenny Opera for Best Score Written for the Musical Theatre in the 20th Century. No matter how many times you have seen this 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein opus, the sheer scope and beauty of the music will always take your breath away.

This is the second time in a decade that director John Saunders and choreographer Kelly L. Shook have teamed up to stage Carousel at the Mac-Haydn (the last time was in 2005) and since then I have seen and reviewed two other productions of the show at very different theatres – in 2008 at the Cohoes Music Hall and in 2009 at Barrington Stage. And I have yet to find a production that really embraces and tells the story of Julie Jordan and Billy Bigelow, largely because of what producers, directors, and audiences today think Carouse is all about is not what Carousel is all about.

Rodgers and Hammerstein have become synonymous with happy, sunny musical comedy – and Hammerstein’s lyrics are relentlessly optimistic – but the source material they selected for their work was often dark and troubling. That was not a problem when this show opened in 145 because Ferenc Molnár’s 1909 tragedy Lilliom, on which it is based had been wildly popular in its English stage translation for nearly a quarter of a century beforehand. Rodgers and Hammerstein shifted the setting to coastal Maine and thus avoided some of the anti-Semitic aspects of the original Hungarian locale, and they gave Billy a sliver of hope at the very end (in the original his failure to aid Louise sends him straight to Hell), but otherwise the story is largely unaltered. Carousel remains a tragedy about a headstrong woman and a stupid, angry man who impulsively get together despite every indication that they, their relationship, and eventually their daughter, are doomed.

At the Mac-Haydn have a somber, passionless Julie in Alison Drew, and smiling, jovial Billy in John Greico and much of that tragedy washes away in the same tide that carries off the remains of the “real nice clambake.” At least Greico manages to sing his role well, and showed some promise of being able to do the role justice after a fine performance of the challenging Soliloquy in Act I. But Drew, and Victoria Broadhurst as her best gal-pal Carrie Pipperidge, are extremely weak in the higher registers, which is where Rodgers and Hammerstein deliver their melodic and lyrical punch.

I have often viewed Carousel as the story of three women – Julie, Carrie, and Louise (Amanda Myers) – but here Lauren French’s unique take on Mrs. Mullin, the owner of the titular carousel, added a fourth lady to the picture. Often played as an unattractive menopausal crone, here Mrs. Mullin is a handsome, lusty young woman who clearly loves Billy and would be his better mate. She is rightfully jealous and angered when he leaves her flat for some little factory girl and gets her knocked up. The crowd – Julie included – immediately gives way to her when she rushes to embrace Billy’s lifeless body.

Broadhurst is not the best Carrie I have seen or heard, but her performance is enhanced when she is paired with Kevin Kelly as Enoch Snow. Kelly is in fine voice and brings real charm to this myopically snobbish and ambitious man.

Monica M. Wemitt plays Julie’s Cousin Nettie Fowler, whose sole purpose in the show is to sing You’ll Never Walk Alone which Wemitt does with heart and panache (see video below).

Not only is Greico too gentle to be an affecting Billy, but Joshua Phan-Gruber is a downright sunny Jigger, which is all wrong. Prior to the Barrington Stage production of Carousel I got into a conversation with director Julianne Boyd about who was the worse villain – Jigger Cragin or Jud Fry in Oklahoma! – and we decided that Jigger was nasty, but Jud was creepier. But neither of them should be played as guys you’d like to bring home for Sunday dinner.

I was also distressed that Phan-Gruber was wearing those same leather motorcycle pants that I hated so much in 2005! This got me thinking about what fabric fishermen would have worn to work a century ago, and while leather provides a thick layer of protection from sharp objects and can be oiled to be relatively waterproof, I still think it is too heavyweight a material, especially when wet. Someone pointed out to me that most fishermen couldn’t swim back then and drowned when they fell overboard regardless of how light or heavy their clothing was, but I maintain they wore oilcloth and not leather.

This production runs a full fifteen minutes shorter than the 2005 Mac-Haydn outing, which I found overlong and suggested that fifteen minutes of dancing be removed to tighten it up. And by gum, I think that’s what Shook and Saunders did! There was plenty of wonderful dancing here, but not too much. Even for music as wonderful as this, three hours is long enough to be sitting in the theatre.

But here everything zipped along on a white cloud of music. This was obviously not a production that was going to stop and worry about piffling things like spousal abuse, although I was struck for the first time by Carrie’s question to Julie upon hearing that Billy had hit her: “Did you hit him back?” This is Julie’s tragic flaw – she’s a wimp. Carrie would have hit him back. Mrs. Mullin would have decked him in a heartbeat, although I don’t think he would have dared raise a hand to a hellion like her in the first place. But abusive men hone in on passive women faster than mosquitoes find a crowd at a picnic and this is Julie’s attraction for Billy.

This is also the legacy she sadly passes on to Louise in the final scene when she assures her daughter that true love means that someone can hit you real hard and you hardly feel it all. Poor Lousie is not genetically blessed with brains or chutzpah and one sees little hope for her, with Enoch Snow, Jr., who would use his social superiority to keep her down, or anyone one else.

There are obviously millions of people who are able to attend a production of Carousel and just enjoy the beautiful music and dancing and not worry about everything that seems to trouble me so much about this story. If you are one of those people, by all means go and enjoy this final big musical production of the Mac-Haydn’s 2011 season, and especially if you are able to bring along young people who haven’t heard this glorious score before. The show looks great with pretty costumes by Dale DiBernardo and skillful lighting by Andrew Gmoser. The set by Kevin Gleason is a bit cumbersome, but the tech crew does a good job of shifting things quickly and quietly while musical director Kevin Finn, assistant Matthew Rose and percussionist Paul Reed distract with Rodgers beautiful music from the pit.

Click HERE to see a full gallery of photos and some video clips from this production.

Carousel runs August 18-21 & 24-28 and August 31 – September 4 at the fully air-conditioned Mac-Haydn Theatre, 1925 NY Rt. 203 in Chatham, NY. The show runs three hours with one intermission and is suitable for all ages. Matinee and evening performances, times and ticket prices vary: visit www.machaydntheatre.org or call 518-392-9292 for more information.

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