by Nathaniel R
"So that's why 'Carousel' is rarely revived... got it!"
Dear reader, I have a confession to make. I had never seen the golden age Rodgers & Hammerstein musical "Carousel" performed before this week. Nor had I ever seen the now rarely discussed film version Carousel (1956), starring Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae. So when I sat down in Broadway's Imperial Theater for the 11-time Tony nominated revival, I really had no idea what to expect...
That's not quite right. I did know that it involved a carousel barker named Billy Bigelow (Joshua Henry) and I was familiar with at least half of the heavenly score.
Joshua Henry is commanding and that voice giant and beautiful in "Carousel"
The musical birthed classic songs like "You'll Never Walk Alone," "If I Loved You," and "Soliloquoy." The latter song is a personal favorite of mine in the annals of Songs as Storytelling. The kind of song I like to reference when I'm arguing why musicals often don't need their dialogue.
And I'm pleased, even ecstatically so in the moment, to report that the cast across the board is doing incredible legit justice to the score. Both famed opera star Renée Fleming and Tony-winner Jessie Mueller as the female lead Julie Jordan sound incredible. That's no surprise in either case. Among the female cast, Lindsay Mendez stole my heart most with an incredibly funny salt-of-the-earth but head-sometimes-in-the-clouds turn as Carrie Pipperidge. All three were Tony nominated.
But the show's inarguable MVP is Joshua Henry in the marquee role. I'd only seen Henry once before in "Violet" with Sutton Foster here he was also Tony-nominated but he's on a whole new level this time. "Soliloquoy," is totally arresting. The song is a great challenge for any actor/singer/leading man. You need major pipes but also acting craft since it contains not one character arc but sorta two, since you 'flip it and reverse it' halfway through the song with a whole new slant to the character arc as you do it again. God what a song that is! And it's fascinating from a gender politics perspective, too, as Bigelow fantasizes about his unborn son... or is it his unborn daughter?
Despite the big booming voice, romantic songs, and one shirtless scene that caused a few people right behind me to audibly gasp (yes, Joshua Henry's torso is, shall we say, perfect, sculptural, unreal, etcetera) Bigelow isn't a likeable protagonist. He's short-tempered, he hits his wife, he's morally compromised, but Henry imbues his numbers with enough real passion, poorly-veiled regret and humanizing self doubt to make you more angry with him for not being a better man than for the sins themselves. It's quite a feat even if the musical goes completely off the rails halfway through the second act due to its alarming plot and supernatural corniness. Once heaven and purgatory and suicide and all sorts of mystical gobbledygook enter the otherwise semi-traditional plot about working class lovers and marrying down and up, it's all downhill. The dumbfounding finale is especially hard to take seriously.
But what beauty until you get there! Aside from a strange tendency to do almost everything far stage-right (I possibly only noticed this because I was sitting in a box on that side so half of the numbers were semi-obscured), this is a beautifully produced show with two standout elements beyond the singing: the Tony-worthy choreography by Justin Peck and beautifully textured and colorful costumes from Oscar winner Ann Roth (I want every sweater and tank that any man in the show wore).
If you can watch dated musicals and forgive them their problematic books, you'll probably love this gloriously sung revival! As exit music, here's a few renditions of the main love song "If I Loved You" with the film musical's stars, plus Kelli O' Hara and Hugh Jackman.