CAROUSEL in London

Mmm I will also probably go but we had that recent concert at Cadogan Hall with Joanna Riding recently that I feel was as good a Carousel as I need.

I have mixed feelings about the ‘reinvention’. On one hand I LOVED the Daniel Fish Oklahoma so I think I’m open and interested to see what people can do for Carousel. However, on the other hand I’d love to see the show presented with the intention of the original authors (I didn’t see the most recent Broadway revival, maybe that’s what I needed).

For me there is no need for anyone to declare or review the show as ‘problematic’ and attempt to suggest it should be fixed or changed if they just announced something like the below at the beginning of the show (could work for any show really):

“You are about to see an iconic piece of theatre history written in the 1940s. In the 1940s there were no cell phones so please turn them off now - in the 1940s there were also different attitudes towards social issues than today. Thankfully the show does not reflect society today. However, we would like you to be part of this history by seeing the show as intended by its authors and trust you can keep this context in mind..”

Ideally we wouldn’t even have to say this as surely when you see an old show you would expect old values - but I recognise not everyone buying tickets understands they might be seeing an old show.

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Sounds a bit heavy-handed in the execution, but I'm glad the estate is allowing people to play around with it. They know it's in everybody's best interest.

FWIW, I don't think the piece requires THIS much alteration to make it work. If you look closely at the text, it's actually quite obvious that Hammerstein was attempting to condemn domestic abuse. It's just that he was working within the framework of 1940's language and mentalities, and naturally made some missteps in communicating the anti-abuse message. I've seen some productions make other alterations that were not nearly this extreme, but still managed to undercut and re-frame those problematic elements.

Even so, the production sounds interesting, and on principle I'm not opposed to making these sweeping changes. Plenty of shows from the 30s-50s have gotten drastically revised books in recent years. Just because Hammerstein was the best of his time, doesn't mean he should be immune from that treatment if the piece calls for it. Carousel is a gorgeous piece of theatre when it's done well, but the book has structural issues even aside from the problematic elements.

@binau's suggestion of doing a disclaimer is really interesting. I had never thought of that option before. I think in some contexts this could be the right direction to go in, especially if it's a theatre company whose mission is to present older shows for historical purposes.

I know they're doing this on platforms like Disney+ and TCM, but I don't think it would be as effective in theatre. With cinema, there's nothing you can do to change it - you can either make it available for public viewing, or you can bury it. So the only middle ground is making disclaimers like that. With theatre, the artists make a conscious choice to tell the story in that way, night after night, year after year. So a disclaimer saying "it was written in the 40s, sorry, there's nothing we can do!" will inevitably ring hollow.

Unless, as I said, it's a company who specifically seeks to present things for their historical value. But those companies are in the minority. Most companies won't have that context - most seek to produce shows that speak to the moment in some way or another, and it's difficult to do that when the show's original book is so outdated.

My only outlet was the recent revival and i just remember sitting there and thinking this is what Carousel is?! It was just a weird show. Henry’s bad accent, the storyline, just struck me weird. But I felt the same way seeing Fisher’s Oklahoma. Like this is the plot??