Carousel is such a beautiful, well-known show that Stratford’s recent trend of topping even the famous originals and legendary remembered productions of great musicals in dazzling, flawless revivals was unlikely here. Broadway pros, director Susan H. Schulman and choreographer Michael Lichtefeld, instead offer a loving tribute to the beloved original by doing full justice to the four-handkerchief weeper that boasts perhaps the most beautiful and flawless score outside of grand opera.
The director’s notes discuss the problem of domestic violence that underlies the source, Ferenc Molnar’s play, Lilliom, which Molnar refused to permit musical adaptations of, even by the great opera creators. But earlier American musical works, The Gershwins’ opera, Porgy and Bess, and Hammerstein and Kern’s musical, Show Boat had already explored controversial, socially disturbing themes. Carousel is so overwhelmingly romantic that when Julie tells her daughter that it is possible for someone you love to hit you hard, yet it feels like a kiss, so great is your love, we are more moved by her emotion than disturbed by the illogic. This production does not ignore or smooth over the mistreatment: it just overwhelms us, as the couple is overwhelmed, by their passion for each other.
Douglas Parachuk’s elaborate sets, aided by Kevin Fraser’s really complex, beautiful lighting and Brad Peterson’s imaginative projections suggest the rural settings -- the carnival, the circus carousel and gaudy dancers, seashore, island, and clambake, schoolyard -- less explicitly but clearly and about as beautifully as the show’s more realistic 1945 settings.
The large, entirely accomplished cast performs all the named roles with distinction, sings very well, and dances really excitingly (even acrobatically). Sean Alexander’s actually charming Enoch Snow (the character is often comically pompous) sings appealingly and is well matched with Robin Evan Willis’ surprisingly forceful Carrie Pipperidge. Robin Hutton’s Mrs. Mullin, who owns and runs the carousel, is raunchy and sexy as expected, but funnier and more likable. Similarly, Stratford stalwart Evan Buliung, playing Jigger Craigin, who leads the financially desperate Billy into robbery and attempted murder, simply moves out of his villainous activity into crowd-pleasing spirited singing and dancing in “Blow High, Blow Low.”
Alana Hibbert does what she can with the underwritten role of Nettie Fowler but rises to the occasion splendidly singing the show-stopping anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
Jacqueline Burtney plays Billy and Julie’s daughter Louise and brings the second act to a moving climax dancing the final ballet handsomely partnered by Alex Black. I saw a preview performance and was told that on opening night the two leads, Alexis Gordon and Jonathan Winsby, played and sang the roles of the two lovers so effectively that they won great applause. I liked them both but thought Ms. Gordon a perhaps too-uncomplicated ingénue who sang very beautifully and acted somewhat persuasively. Mr. Winsby may have been saving his voice when I saw his Billy. He has a beautiful baritone and is a commanding actor. And his “Soliloquy” – one of the most thrilling male solos in all of musical theatre – was a knockout ending for Act I. But the almost sadistic sequence of events and songs that start Act II climaxes with Billy’s solo that pretty much does in the already weeping audience. We end Act I with Billy desperate to provide for his and pregnant Julie’s child. Now he ducks out of the clambake that the crowd is singing and dancing to celebrate and attempts a theft and murder, then, failing, stabs himself. Julie sings a pessimistic song of resignation, “What’s the Use of Wond’rin’,” then finds Billy, kneels over his dead body, and then Nettie tries to comfort her by singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” We’re all pretty much done in at that point; and Billy rises, transported to the gates of heaven, and from the heartbroken desperation of his lost life, he defiantly sings, “The Highest Judge of All,” ending on a thrilling high note with: It’s a high C or something: And Jonathan Winsby didn’t try to hit it when I heard him sing the number. So I don’t know what to tell you, except that that moment usually reduces the audience to a puddle.
This is a good-looking, well directed and performed revival of the musical that Time Magazine called “the greatest musical of the 20th Century.” So, all finicky quibbles aside, it’s yet another successful entry in Stratford’s astonishing 63rd season.
Reckon my sins are great big sins
And the punishment won’t be small.
So take me before the highest judge
And let me be judged by the Highest Judge
Of all!
