Starring: Nathan Gunn, Kelli O’Hara, Jessie Mueller
Director: John Rando
Run Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Information: Carousel is currently streaming on the Lincoln Center’s YouTube channel through September 8, 2020.
Rating: ★★★
John Rando’s basic staging allows the actors’ talents to come to the forefront, but also exposes the holes in this flawed masterpiece.
Kelli O’Hara is the foremost contemporary interpreter of the works by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, having starred in the most recent Broadway productions of South Pacific and The King and I (she bagged her first Tony Award for the latter production). Her mellow operatic voice, warm vibrato, and percipient attention to details in characterization lend themselves perfectly to Rodgers’s euphonious music and Hammerstein’s complex characters.
So it’s a real gift to see O’Hara helming the New York Philharmonic’s staged production of Carousel, now streaming for free on the Lincoln Center’s YouTube channel through September 8, 2020. In this Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic, she plays Julie Johnson, a young female millworker in nineteenth century Maine who falls in love with a suave carousel barker named Billy Bigelow.
O’Hara is joined by an all-star cast that includes Nathan Gunn, Jessie Mueller, Jason Danieley, Stephanie Blythe, and Shuler Hensley. At first glance, Gunn’s Bigelow appears to be an all-American macho, striding in with broad, heavy steps and speaking with a brooding voice. But as the musical progresses, the strongman becomes darker and more complex – a flawed protagonist who hides his insecurities behind a masculine veneer. In Bigelow’s ‘Soliloquy’ that closes out the first act, the jobless father-to-be reflects upon his fears of having children and the prospect of being unable to provide for them. Clocking in at nearly eight minutes in length, the piece is operatic in nature and is demanding both vocally and emotionally. Yet Gunn – a seasoned opera performer – effortlessly draws out the pathos and humour from the lyrics and masterfully traverses the mountainous score with his rich, velvet tone.
Mueller is a compelling Carrie Pepperidge, Julie’s brash and carefree friend and fellow millworker who, in a secondary storyline, falls in love with the fisherman Enoch Snow. Mueller’s gentle voice and melancholic performance of ‘Mister Snow’ is a far departure from her earthier timbre that earned her a Tony Award in 2014 for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and is a testament to her vocal dexterity and range.
Danieley has a beautiful tenor voice as Snow, but is somewhat unable to pinpoint the characterization. His Snow flip flops between being overly comedic or nerdy. Blythe and Hensley round out the main cast as Nettie Fowler and Jigger Craigin, respectively – Julie’s kindred cousin and Billy’s up-to-no-good friend – and deliver fine performances.
But beyond these Broadway-calibre performances, there is not much to admire in this production of Carousel. Allen Moyer has crafted an elegant set that features carousel figurines floating freely above the stage, which is filled by a few evocative set pieces and a vertical ‘CAROUSEL’ sign that is fitted with light bulbs that goes unused for the whole show. These elements, along with two porturiding walkways that cut through the orchestra, make for an ideal playing space, but director John Rando makes little use of it, choosing instead to stage most scenes on the narrow and extremely wide apron at the front of the stage, in front of the orchestra.
The staging, for the most part, is static and monotonous. Ken Billington’s non-existent lighting designs don’t help the proceedings. Perhaps the only moment of reprieve is the graceful ballet sequence between Louise (Tiler Peck), Billy and Julie’s daughter who wants to find love but is haunted by her father’s misdeeds, and the Carnival Boy (Robert Fairchild). It is choreographed to perfection by Warren Carlyle. (If only we didn’t have to wait until the second act to see his exquisite work and superb use of the entire stage, with dancers weaving in and out in elegant wave-like patterns).
What Rando’s staging does do, however, is expose the flaws in this problematic gem of a musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s follow-up to their critical masterpiece Oklahoma!. Yes, there are moments of sheer genius and bliss within this show: ‘If I Loved You’, the stunning duet between Julie and Billy as they hesitantly explore their feelings for one another, set the standard for all future musicals of how to show the inner feelings of characters without stating it explicitly. But there are other moments that leave you scratching your head: the lyrics ‘This was a real nice clambake’, sung at the top of the second act until your ears are raw, make you question whether Hammerstein was writing that song for sophisticated adult audiences or babbling toddlers.
In moments like those, at least you can turn your attention to Don Walker’s layered orchestrations, animated tastefully by the musicians of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO). It’s especially wonderful to hear the opening overture given the full orchestra treatment. There are times, however, when the orchestra, under the direction of Rob Fisher, doesn't align with the actors. But this can be excused due to the fact the NYPO rarely performs Broadway fare.
If you go into this performance expecting a full-blown production of Carousel that plays to the strengths of the musical, you will be sorely disappointed. But what you can expect is a fine concert with formidable actors and a world-class orchestra.
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