In the show, during that time period with that kind of social hierarchy, Billy and Julie are, indeed, white trash. That's not saying that poor people are white trash. But in Carousel, to people like Mr. Bascombe, who thinks of Julie merely as an employee (if you think for a second he actually cares about her and not her reflection on him when he offers to bring her back to the mill, you're giving Bascombe too much credit), they are absolutely the lowest you can get just short of a street beggar. Even when Billy HAD a job, it was as a carousel barker in a traveling carnival. That's fascinating and dangerous to young women, especially those who wouldn't mind one quick night of passion that would be forgotten as soon as the carnival moves on to the next town, but in no way is it a respectable occupation. The fact that being a barker is all that Billy knows and likes speaks volumes about his incompetence. He's not a bad person. But in terms of where he stands in that society, he's just about the lowest. Once Julie marries him, any social standing she might have had (which is just barely above Billy) is gone.
I really do hate it when Julie is portrayed as somewhat classy and dignified. It really clouds the audience's perception of where Julie stands in life and what her prospects are. If she's so refined and level-headed, why would she choose to stay with Billy and lose her job? If Mr. Bascombe is SUCH a nice man that he's willing to give Julie a second chance (that's sarcasm, as Mr. Bascombe isn't a nice man, he's a God-fearing business man), why wouldn't she go with him? Julie is young and lonely and can't see anything in her future that would give her any happiness. She clearly could marry if she chose, as there's an indication that she had some sort of a beau once ("A fella you went walking with"), but she never loved him and couldn't bring herself to move the relationship any further than walking "nowhere special." In Billy, she sees a kindred lonely spirit who might be the one bit of happiness she'll ever know in her cold, sad life. And so, with a bit of skepticism and embarrassment, she chooses to stay and enjoy her fifteen minutes of happiness.
That entire "If I Loved You" scene is a masterpiece of confusion, longing, frustration, sexual tension and danger that concludes with (what should be) a very passionate kiss. In the Hytner production, the final 30 seconds were staged with Billy and Julie falling into each other's arms, the grassy knoll they were on slowly moving backwards, the entire stage dark with the exception of a single spotlight on the two of them that was getting smaller and smaller, all the while Billy and Julie clinging to each other as if they feared they would fall into the darkness, should they let go. It was a great moment foreshadowing why the two would stay together until Billy's untimely death. Their relationship might be toxic to each other, but they're all that each other has. Let go, and there's nothing but darkness surrounding.
Billy is, to be blunt, a bum. But he's aware of that ("What can I do for her? I'm a bum with no money") and it eats him up inside. To Billy, he once had the perfect life. He had a low pressure, no responsibility job that allowed him to make money, drink free beer and charm women and sometimes even bed them with no consequences. The one string attached was that he would have to sometimes sleep with his boss. Not at all a setback for someone like Billy who always found sex and women a carefree pleasure that was quickly forgotten after it was done. For him to go from that to a situation where he is now responsible for two people, where he has to rely on the kindness of his wife's female cousin who has her own business and him making no money or working at any kind of a job, knowing that everyone around looks down upon him for it, just about kills Billy inside. He wants to provide for Julie, but he just doesn't know how. And every time they're together he's reminded of how he's doing nothing for the woman he loves. That hatred towards himself builds up inside of him as a pressure cooker, making him explode at inopportune times and taking it out on the people he cares about. It doesn't make him a hero, but it does makes him human.
Billy and Julie absolutely are relatable to Stella and Stanley in Streetcar, though I would say that Streetcar is more outright in the dialogue about their sexual attraction and as to why Stella stays. "If Loved You" isn't a meet cute and "What's the Use of Wondrin" isn't another "Can't Help Lovin That Man." They are about, respectively, the culmination of two souls finding solace in a cold world and of the resolution of having to accept it when that solace isn't perfect or even enough because in the end, it's really all you have. This is all the more tragic considering how young Julie and Billy are. What made Murphy and Hayden and (from the footage I saw) Wicks and Snyder so effective, was that their melancholy came from the foresight of knowing they had a future of nothing ever getting better, as opposed to the many years of life experience that eventually taught them that.
This concert was perhaps the most glorious sounding Carousel we're likely to ever hear. But it didn't touch on ANY of these aspects of the show. The score was given a 5 star treatment, while the book was essentially given the shaft (I found some of the book edits to really be atrocious). That said, I would love to see O'Hara and Mueller play Julie and Carrie in a fully realized production as I think both have the makings to be terrific in the parts but as it stood in this concert, which despite the costumes and semi-staging was REALLY all it was, they were essentially the outlines of what could be fantastic performances.
"Sing the words, Patti!!!!" Stephen Sondheim to Patti LuPone.
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