CAROUSEL (2018) Previews — Page 8

There is only one carousel horse, and that is offto the side. The dancers create the horses through their poses; the men hold a stationary spot on the circle and the women rotate around striking a different “horse pose” as she encounters each man.

I seem to have liked the choreography more the most. It honored the style of de Mille and was expertly executed. I agree with colorthehours that it didn’t connect with the story as much as it could. It wasn’t on the transcendent level Wheeldon recently took the Brigadoon choreography to, but I wouldn’t call it chopped liver either. It wasn’t the hacky gymnastics and backflips that Ashford brought to the last Promises, Promises and How to Succeed revivals. It wasn’t just showing off for the sake of showing off.

People can shout about the preview period all they want, but if a production is misconceived it’s hard to right that ship. Performances will surely get better (Bernadette and Victor improved leaps and bounds from their first performance), but this revival isn’t suddenly going to become wholly reconstructed in six. The least they can do is reinsert the songs and restore the book.

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I think people are understandably comparing this CAROUSEL to DOLLY simply because its the same producer, some of the same designers and the same epic size musical being presented in lavish revival.

But unlike HELLO DOLLY, CAROUSEL, in my opinion, because of its deeper themes and darker subject matter, is a piece that must be continually reconsidered in order to resonate with contemporary audiences. At the very least, it has to have a smart director who understands what he wishes a contemporary audience to take away from the story and the emotional journey of the characters at the center of it. Unlike the original DOLLY, simply recreating the original CAROUSEL today wouldn't come across as a joyous celebration of vintage champagne Broadway, because, firstly, that isn't the show to begin with, and secondly, CAROUSEL is a musical that asks us to look at the most unconscionable of behavior and question if we can still find redemption in the face of our beautiful, tragic, flawed humanity.

That is why the cardinal sin of this production - particularly now - is for them to white wish the violence of Billy's behavior. And removing the line, "yes, it's possible for someone to hit you hard and for you not to feel it," speaks completely to its lack of understanding. This isn't a line condoning violence, it is one character's almost shocking insight into the understanding that love is the only way out - its the only way redemption in a cruel world is possible. Without it, Billy has learned no lesson, CAROUSEL has lost it's theme, and the production has lost its emotional spine.

Sure, they may make changes, but Jack O'Brien doesn't seem interested in creating characters who eat and breath and have sexual desires and tragic flaws. He seems more interested in taking the characters of CAROUSEL and dropping them into Jerry Zak's cotton candy Yonkers around the block, and that to me doesn't bode well for this production.

Regarding the other song changes, I understand a director wanting to make trims. Hytner famously removed "The Highest Judge of All" and that was controversial. But he had a crystal vision for the story, the characters, and given how moving and percipient his production was, I have to trust that, for his take, it was the right decision.

I don't know why O'Brien removed what he did because I have no idea what he is trying to say on that stage. I also have no idea with Justin Peck is trying to say on that stage.

Obviously, for many, the experience of a beautiful production (and it is visually lovely) and good voices and a lush orchestra will be enough. To them, I say, go and enjoy. But this, to me, was a missed opportunity, particularly now, to give us a CAROUSEL that could speak to our times and fill an emotional need we have to more deeply connect and empathize and understand each other.

They have a month to "fix" a Musical that has worked for 72 years.

Anyone see the irony there?

Sounds like a very disappointing first preview. I hope they improve.

The comment above that the show needs sex is exactly right. The attraction Billy holds for Julie can only be sexual - she's never spoken to him, or spent any time with him - she's only looked at him. That's not love, it's infatuation, mere sexual allure. It may grow to love later, but I admit I've never seen Julie as more than a masochistic doormat; Billy Bigelow is truly a pretty rotten individual, with a smattering of better impulses (upon which he never acts). He is redeemed for most audiences via the schmaltz of Rodgers music and Hammerstein's lyrics, but if you examine his actions, he comes up with a pretty low score.

Without the sex aspect, the show is just another operetta.

Newintown -- I truly wish more footage existed of Joanna Riding's Julie at the RNT, which remains, probably the greatest acting performance I've ever seen in a musical. She was somehow able to take Julie from a sexually curious, naive, full of optimism, (clearly) blue-collar girl, to a wisened matriarch toughened by life, only to be broken at the seams by the love and understanding she discovers in the moments of Billy's return. That porch scene on youtube gives you a touch of her brilliance in the part, but she was just astonishing in the early parts of the show as well.

The other thing Jack O'Brien seems to have forgotten is that these are working class people. They are crass and un-educated, and life for them exists in a kind of visceral moment-to-moment experience. It's part of what gives the show its energy and emotional weight and yes, 'sex.'

Updated On: 3/1/18 at 09:50 AM

There is a Carousel, I have photo proof, I guess they just decided against using last night due to tech problems or who knows.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdOPZXQH3ED/?taken-by=justin_peck

TheatreRocks said: "There is a Carousel, I have photo proof, I guess they just decided against using last night due to tech problems or who knows.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdOPZXQH3ED/?taken-by=justin_peck"

That carousel may be put into the show eventually, but it was definitely not in last night.

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TheatreRocks said: "There is a Carousel, I have photo proof, I guess they just decided against using last night due to tech problems or who knows.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdOPZXQH3ED/?taken-by=justin_peck"

Has anyone considered that Justin Peck is at an actual carousel somewhere and not a piece of the show's scenic design? lol.

But they have photo proof!

Sally Durant Plummer said: "Here's one of my main issues with this staging. I don't believe in colorblind casting. Casting is context. Everyone walks in with baggage about what they are seeing on stage, due to the structure this country was built on. So what I was interested in seeing in this production was how they dealt with how Billy and Jigger are POC actors who serve to enact the primary violence in this play. Mostly, this production ignored it. Some lines fit in very well with Billy being a Black man, but because the book doesn't delve deep into abuse, we can't infer anything about why he does this to Julie, except that "she's right" in arguments."

Argh. Why do people find colorblind casting so hard? Or misinterpret it. Colorblind casting, no matter what the actor or director politically correctively say, is generally a person of color, generally black, PRETENDING to be white! Most of these colorblind shows are set in a very VERY racist past where Mr. Snow would never marry a black woman or an Oklahoma sheriff would never consider marrying a woman of color, no matter if she looks and sings like Audra McDonald. Or maybe even .. a beautiful black woman being.the daughter of two white Victorian Norwegians (even if the mother IS a proto-feminist). We as theatre-goers know that music doesn't just come out of the air and people sing. Or that Mandy Patinkin really isn't Che Guevara come back to life. We are all in a shared two to three hour fantasy world where we all agree to suspend disbelief. I guess Joshua might think he is playing a black man but that belies the truth of the situation and his relationships within the play. And though this IS a fantasy, the truth within the fantasy MUST BE PLAYED. So I watch and love a colorblind show knowing that the fourth wall is turning a black person into a white person by the magic of the theatre. That might sound racist, but in my opinion it's exactly the opposite.

From the recent NYT article:

Scott Rudin, the lead producer of the current revival, said the creative team, led by the director Jack O’Brien, would not be changing the show’s text (other than a possible minor tweak to reflect the fact that Mr. Henry is African-American).

“We’re going to do it as written — it’s what they wrote, and it’s the truth of the characters,” he said. “Julie does not stand for every woman, and Louise does not stand for every teenage girl.” (The production declined to make Ms. Mueller available for an interview.)

Mr. Rudin, who frequently produces revivals of plays and musicals, noted that “half of the great works depict troubled relationships, and I don’t think it makes any sense to whitewash them.” He said he understood that some audience members would see the show in the context of the #MeToo movement: “If people choose to look at it through that lens, that’s great, and if they don’t want to, that’s their right.”

“The job of a play or a musical is not to answer a question, it’s to ask a question,” he added.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/theater/gender-stereotypes-carousel-my-fair-lady-pretty-woman.html

So what happened then?

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Argh. Why do people find colorblind casting so hard? Or misinterpret it. Colorblind casting, no matter what the actor or director politically correctively say, is generally a person of color, generally black, PRETENDING to be white! Most of these colorblind shows are set in a very VERY racist past where Mr. Snow would never marry a black woman or an Oklahoma sheriff would never consider marrying a woman of color, no matter if she looks and sings like Audra McDonald. Or maybe even .. a beautiful black woman being.the daughter of two white Victorian Norwegians (even if the mother IS a proto-feminist). We as theatre-goers know that music doesn't just come out of the air and people sing. Or that Mandy Patinkin really isn't Che Guevara come back to life. We are all in a shared two to three hour fantasy world where we all agree to suspend disbelief. I guess Joshua might think he is playing a black man but that belies the truth of the situation and his relationships within the play. And though this IS a fantasy, the truth within the fantasy MUST BE PLAYED. So I watch and love a colorblind show knowing that the fourth wall is turning a black person into a white person by the magic of the theatre. That might sound racist, but in my opinion it's exactly the opposite.

It's all well and good to "ignore" race when reviving certain shows - Hello, Dolly! is a fine example that in my opinion could be taken even further in its current casting stage. But no, I call bullsh!t on the idea that any POC actor playing a character in an old show traditionally played by white people "become" white. That simply is not the case. Every single person, from the tourist, to the musical theatre fanatics, to the schoolchildren, to the tired businessman whose wife dragged him the Imperial, walks in with preconceived notions about the people we are seeing. This is because of the systematic oppression started by Colonialism that the US is built on. It is near impossible to ignore it. And irresponsible.

That is not to say I believe that only white actors should play these parts. On the contrary, we should be examining these roles to see what they play become when we use casting as context. And the current Carousel's context is that the only major POC characters are the only perpetrators of violence. As I said, I think there's something to be dug into here, but this production has not done so. And that was a real failing for me.

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As a director, I 100% believe in color blind casting when a show’s story or theme having nothing to do with race. The RNT CAROUSEL is also probably one of the best examples of “true” color blind casting being effectively utilized in a golden era piece of musical theatre writing.

That said, I’m going to say something controversial. Based on what I saw last night, I don’t believe this production is truly utilizing color blind casting. I actually think the creatives are (painfully) aware that they have a person of color playing a violent character, and that has influenced their decision to lesson the evils perpetrated by this character. I think it is the fearful foundation of the cuts aforementioned.

It’s a missed opportunity to look at something also in the heart of Carousel. Namely, how those who don’t fit in are ultimately pushed to the breaking point (this is certainly Louise’s plight and to a lesser degree what fuels Julie to choose a self destructive life). Certainly, if the production chose to actually look at the fact that Billy is black in a pretty much otherwise mostly white community, it might have given us some insights we haven’t seen before. But instead it dances around the fact and as a result seems tentative both in the character’s sexual and physical aggressions.

This is a problem because it defies the text.

Moreover, it is a great disservice to Mr. Henry who is a very skilled actor. I have no doubt he could have made much more of his character’s need and redemption if he weren’t saddled with a director’s clear timidity about how an audience might view a black actor in this part.