I finally listened to the RNT recording, and I still prefer the Broadway one. If anything, the Prologue sound infinitely better on the Broadway recording than on the RNT recording. I also don't get the Joanna Riding love. Her vocals are definitely smoother than Murphy's, but I felt almost no emotion in her singing. It was as if she were singing for a cabaret. And I don't see the difference between Hayden's vocals in the RNT recording and the Broadway one. If anything, his acting improved in the latter with Murphy giving him more passion than Riding.
Also, in reference to my first post, I finally got to watch the Carousel video at Lincoln Center and....wow. It completely opened my eyes to not only the possibilities in the theatre, but with interpreting a text. There's so much that Nicholas Hytner and his cast found in that text that no one else had found before them, and for some reason, many people don't intend to follow their example.
The current production in London, for example, has chosen to approach the material in the old fashioned way it once was known. Billy is now a hunky operatic baritone who stands like a stick and acts like the former quarterback of the football team, Julie is a demure lady, Carrie is a screaming, annoying, prissy thing, and almost everyone else acts as if life, death and love were something to be shrugged off. No passion, no intensity. Just good ol' fashioned fun.
The Lincoln Center production, however, is a complete turn around. The first major difference being that Bob Crowley's sets were a work of art (the projections used for the current revival are a work of insanity). And there really isn't that much of it. Especially in the opening prologue. Hytner and Crowley never give us the carnival as a whole, as it is normally done. Rather, they give us a taste of it in the form of a theatrical slide show, with each new booth or attraction (including a freak show and a fun house) sliding on to the turntable as Julie and Carrie make the rounds of the carnival, eventually arriving at the carousel where she and Billy finally meet. Everything in that prologue just built in wonderful fashion, keeping the environment theatrical and magical while the acting on stage managed to be surprisingly realistic. All the while, Kenneth MacMillan's inspired choreography was seamlessly integrated throughout.
The rest of the production proved to be just as passionate, magical, realistic and exhilarating as those first 8 minutes. Never before has "June is Bustin' Out All Over" been shown as such a carnal number with the men and women practically devouring each other as they sang. Both genders dancing up a storm so as to playfully, and sexually, compete with each other, until the music and choreography builds to the point where they can't express their emotions through dance and so...they jump. Stomp, rather. They stomp for joy. No. For release. It's the only way to show how they're feeling at that moment. It's incredible.
Hayden and Murphy, despite their not polished voices are absolutely heartbreaking and entirely real as Billy and Julie. And while their voices are, yes, not-polished, they are hardly the catastrophes many purists have stated. At least on the video, their vocals are actually more improved than on the cd. Hayden, especially. Hayden really gives the audience the perception that Billy is a true loser. A bum who can't accomplish anything and hates the fact that he's so helpless to support the woman he loves. Hayden projects this anger, sadness, and frustration with a raw sexuality and intense masculinity that is rarely seen on a Broadway stage. No wonder Murphy's Julie, who is incredibly self-possessed in the company of others (even going so far as to stand up to her boss), goes breathless in the presence of him.
And while on the topic of Murphy's Julie, I'd like to express specific acclaim. Sally Murphy successfully showed a character who started out the play as a girl who become a woman through circumstance and eventually became a weary mother. Her line readings go from confident to weak to incredibly vulnerable. Her monologue to Billy's corpse is shattering as she tries to compose herself even though she is devastated, shamed, and frightened of the future. Each line she says to the deceased Billy physically hurts her, and it hurts us too to see a woman go through so much pain.
If there is one word to describe the revival it wouldn't be perfect, it wouldn't be impressive, it wouldn't be magical. These words all seem to slick for this type of production. The word to describe it would be raw. There's raw emotion, raw intensity, raw passion, and raw magic. Dancing feels as natural as breathing and singing seems as evident as speaking. Everything flows in such a beautiful manner that you almost resent the production for not allowing you to fully savor a moment for longer. But the production, like life, won't allow you that satisfaction. You are with these characters until their story comes full circle, which it does. And it couldn't be more beautiful.
"Sing the words, Patti!!!!" Stephen Sondheim to Patti LuPone.
