henrikegerman said: "Much stronger scenic design for the heaven scenes, and save them until after Billy dies. The predestined or testing of fate approach to Billy's death didn't work for me. "
I came into this production having (somehow) never seen a production of Carousel, and didn't really know anything about it other than a decent amount of the score, out of context. I had no idea there was a supernatural element, and I had to stop myself from saying a big WTF?! out loud when Billy killed himself and then suddenly was in heaven (or purgatory, or whatever). It made me think of that scene in Friends where Joey is in what appears to be a relatively normal, serious play, and then suddenly a UFO with a ladder appears and he says, "so I'm going to get on this spaceship..." It almost made me laugh, it was so out of left field.
Anyway, the fact that the Starkeeper was in the show from the beginning is the one thing that made that plot element *sort of* make sense to me. Is he not it in in most productions? The supernatural stuff really comes out of nowhere most of the time? Huh? What am I missing?
Also, interesting to read someone's comment that the Starkeeper doesn't normally feed Billy those lines at the end. That would make more sense, because my jaw was on the ground that somehow Billy comes back to earth, hits his daughter, and then... still goes to heaven? I'm getting that in most other productions we're supposed to find him redeemable and not the villain of the story? Is Julie supposed to be redeemable? Hell of a gorgeous score, but I'm still scratching my head at how this completely strange plot with awful characters is considered a masterpiece of American Musical Theatre. To each their own, I guess - I'm sure I'm in the minority here since it's obviously considered a classic for a reason.
