CARNIVAL: What do you think

I saw the Kennedy Center production last year. It's a mesmerizing experience. I love every second of it. I cannot ever imagine that I could have been so moved by such a simple love story.

This one of my favorite shows. Have performed the puppets in it three times and directed it once. The music is wonderful, the story is so good. But I have to say that it is a difficult show to do because of the puppets - needs a great actor with the ability to manipulate the puppets and act the part. Then there is the magic - something else not easy to perform well. Jerry Orbach, yes from Law and Order, was perfection. The female lead is also a very demanding role, someone who has to convince an audience that the puppets are alive.

With all of this, I really love this show.

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I saw the original Broadway production and I loved it. The cast was pretty phenomenal, and its opening is the single greatest opening to a show I have ever seen.

Sadly I've never gotten to see it live I LOVE "Lili" - the movie based on "Carnival" and I love the songs. I wish they would do a nice production somewhere in NYC.

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I saw CARNIVAL in 1961 at the Imperial. It starred Jerry Orbach, Anna Maria Alberghetti, James Mitchell, Kaye Ballard and the French Pierre Olaf. This brilliant production, with music and lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by Michael Stewart, was directed and choreographed by Gower Champion in what may be Champion's finest achievement on Broadway. It received 5 rave reviews and 2 favorable ones and ran for a very respectable 719 performances, about the same number that the OBC of GYPSY ran.

I loved this show, from the actors to the music to the choreography, to the whole concept. When you walked into the Imperial, the curtain was already up, and the stage lights barely lit on an empty stage. Ever so slowly the stage lights became brighter as the roustabouts started setting up their carnival in a new town. Only when the carnival was set up did the overture begin.Overtures used to be more important than they seem to be today.

Orbach, as the sour, bitter puppetier, lived a happier life through his hand puppets. Alberghetti was the young impressionable waif from "a little town called Mira". Her singing of a song called "Mira" was exquisite, where the ending of the song, on a note so pianissimo that you could hear a pin drop in the theatre, was breath-taking.

There were actual magic tricks performed in between very dramatic scenes involving Orbach and Alberghetti. The one "hit" of the show was "Love Makes the World Go 'Round", so I can't imagine a director cutting that song. The rousing "Grand Imperial Cirque de Paris" was a wonderfully choreographed number involving most of the cast.

I saw the OBC of CAMELOT that night, and I have to say that it paled in comparison with the magical CARNIVAL. Everyone knows where Jerry Orbach went after this show, but what became of Anna Maria Alberghetti and her marvelous singing voice? She must have gotten married and moved on to a non theatrical life.

I would love to see this musical revived, especially if the direction and choreography of the talented Gower Champion could be restored, as unlikely as that might be. But if Bonnie Walker can reproduce the original Jerome Robbins choreography for the current revival of GYPSY, it would be possible.

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Carnival! has to be one of my favorite shows in the whole world.

I too saw the Kennedy Center production (6 times actually) and had a very interesting experience during the final weekend. This older woman next to me and brought her mother to see the show and her mother was telling me about seeing the original production and the movie when she was younger. After the show, she told me that she believed they were just as good as the original cast and how good it was to see the show she loved again. It about broke my heart.

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This is my favorite show. I saw the Encores! production each night it was performed, and while I thought it was lovely, and that all the leads did great jobs (particularly Douglas Sills as Marco), I was shocked that they took out a major part of the show. Paul is supposed to slap Lilli near the end of the show, and they just skipped it altogether. I am certainly not a fan of violence towards women, but I was expecting the slap, and I felt that the show lost a little of its power without it. It's such a tiny moment, but I think it has a huge effect on all the characters, because you see how the two leads respond to this and it tells so much about both of them. Anyone else see this and notice it? Thoughts?

Also, I heard back in 2002 that producer Julian Shlossberg owned the rights to the show and was seriously considering a Broadway production, but I guess nothing ever came of that. Also might have been bunk.

Updated On: 5/8/08 at 11:44 AM

I have not seen this show but I have owned the OCR for a while now, and I love everything about it. Her Face has become a permanent song in my repertoire. It'd be great to see this show come back to Broadway sometime.

I have performed in CARNIVAL twice now; as Paul in 1979 and as Schlegel in 2004. Both times it was a mind-numbing bore. At least I got paid well the second time.

I also saw the Kennedy Center production bunches of times. How I wish they would have transferred it to Broadway. That production was just beautifully done, it's a shame they didn't at least record it, since there are so few cast recordings of the show.

I so wish I could have seen the original production, that must have been an amazing experience.

Today's audiences can find Paul to be a pedophile and Lili to be retarded. Of course, that was never the original intent. Perceptions change along with time.

As for Paul's slapping, Lili: A heated discussion developed between me and a fiend after seeing Goodspeed's current and remarkable staging of CAROUSEL. I saw Billy Bigelow's slapping Julie as an extension of his life that was devoid of any love--including self love. She saw it as an arrant glorification of spousal abuse. I wonder if she feels the same way about STREETCAR?

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I thought Douglas Sills was terrific at Encores. I wasn't that impressed with Anne Hathaway.

I don't think the show is worth reviving, except as a museum piece.

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