“How to Handle a Woman”
A review of the revival of
Rogers & Hammerstein‘s “Carousel”
at the
Imperial Theatre
Disclaimer:
I am not particularly fond of Rogers & Hammerstein‘s “Carousel”.
Even though much of the music is among my favorite in the Rogers & Hammerstein catalogue, save for the Soliloquy which to me is a cringe worthy 6 minutes – I even joked pre-show that Soliloquy was my early intermission bathroom break, to hear a brilliant Rogers & Hammerstein score played by a Broadway orchestra is one of the reasons that I decided to attend this Revival,
Much to my dismay I did not even get that.
The orchestrations were flat, two dimensional representations, and the sound design by Mr. Scott Lehrer woefully underwhelming. Sitting in the Orchestra I expected the music to be spectacular but I was sadly disappointed – especially after the recent multi-million dollar remodel of the Imperial Theatre.
I also could just not get past “Carousel’s” main character, Billy Bigelow, the dishonest, wife-beating, carnival barker not being portrayed by a white actor.
Go ahead, get it out of your system, start calling me all kinds of names (you’d be totally wrong) but here’s the thing – perhaps it’s conditioning, perhaps it’s purism, I’m not sure, but in my mind the connotations of such a vile character being played by a Black man is just wrong. The thought kept going through my mind, ‘Why would any person of color agree to play this role?” As far as performance goes, Josh Henry nails it, and nails it strong. His smooth, silk like, baritone voice in any other role would, and have, taken me to great heights emotionally.
Throughout the entire show I felt like I was at a performance of MCC’s Miscast. Great voices cast in the wrong roles.
Further, while I have always felt that the part of Julie Jordan, played by a delightful, if not completely doe-eyed and confused Ms. Jessie Mueller, is terribly underwritten, there were times Mr. Jack Doyle, the Director seemed to forget Julie/Jesse was even in the show. More disappointment came from Ms. Renée Fleming, whose gorgeous operatic soprano voice is just too prim and proper to be Aunt Nettie.
Then there’s the casting of a Middle Eastern actor, the talented and graceful ballet dancer, Amar Ramasar, making his Broadway (and possibly acting) debut, to play “Jigger”, another monster of a character. This is yet another dangerous step towards stereotyping. Every time I heard Billy Bigelow call his name I thought he was using the N-word .
There is some good news. The shining stars of the show were most definitely the lark-voiced Ms. Lindsay Mendez who portrayed Carrie Pipperidge with a delightful and quirky style to her that played extremely well off of Mr. Alexander Gemignani’s playfully-teasing Mr. Enoch Snow. As a matter of fact, Mr. Gemignani’s performance is award worthy in my opinion.
I must also admit to you that while I tend to tune out the seemingly obligatory ballet sequences of most early 20th century musical theater, Ms. Brittany Pollock and Mr. Andrei Chagas were graceful and visually stunning in the Fairground Ballet sequence – a great tribute to the fabulous Choreography of Mr. Justin Peck.
Santo Loquasto’s scenic design was executed well, although there were too many ‘played in front of the curtain’ scenes while scenery was being noisily shuffled around Backstage. Note to Production: PLEASE Oil the stage right light motors and the sheer curtain pulleys.
Sadly, Ms. Ann Roth’s costumes look like they have been recycled from my high school production of ‘Oklahoma!’ And what’s with those baggy pants that come up to the men’s bellies?
The lighting design by Brian McDevitt left me squinting many times to see what was happening on stage and again, that was from Orchestra Row M – I can only imagine what it was like up in the oxygen-tank seats.
Speaking of seats, it appears to me that when they remodeled the theater after “The Great Comet“ they added many more seats then there were before. In my cushy (read expensive) Orchestra seat I was sucking on my knees or more annoyingly to her, scraping the back of the chair of the lady in front of me.
All that being said, I haven’t told you the worst part:
I DIDN’T CRY!!!
Me – the person who “cries at everything” – DIDN’T CRY!!!
If you’ll remember, I said up front that I’m not the biggest fan of this show – BUT when I DO see it I always CRY – ALWAYS! This tells me everything I need to know.
All said, the audience seemed to love the show, hooting and hollering along with their thunderous applause, it was a Press Preview, so perhaps you too will enjoy Rodger’s & Hammerstein’s Carousel as much as they did.
Me, I’m still optimistically looking forward to Lincoln Center’s revival of “My Fair Lady”
“The Play That Goes Wrong”
As I mentioned above, the members of the ‘Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’, are attempting to put on a 1920s’ murder mystery called, “The Murder at Haversham Manor”, written by Susie H. K. Brideswell, but that play isn’t really important, as a matter of fact, after two viewings, I’m still not sure ‘whodunnit’ or why! It’s the performance, or lack thereof, of the play that is the point here.
The play within a play opens with Jonathan playing Charles Haversham, (played with deafening subtlety by Greg Tannahill, the worst corpse ever) who is dead (?) being discovered in his study at his engagement party by Robert (the purposefully overacted, pompously riotous, and agile Henry Lewis) playing Thomas Colleymoore, Charles’ best friend, and Dennis (daftly played by Jonathan Sayer) playing Perkins, Charles’ manservant, who can’t remember his lines and shouts most of them.
news to Sandra (delightfully hammed up and overplayed by Charlie Russell) playing Florence Colleymoore, Charles’ fiancè and Thomas’ sister who has also been having an affair with Max (who as portrayed with calculated silliness by Dave Hearn) playing Cecil Haversham ( who gets distracted by audience laughter and applause), Charles’ brother (as well as Arthur the Gardener).
Confused? GOOD! That’s how it’s supposed to be. But it’s not about who plays whom – it’s about the timing. TIMING IS EVERYTHING and it has never been better timed than by this group of actors. While what goes wrong, and I refuse to spoil it for you here, seems to be a sequence of random events ‘just happening’ they are, in reality, a series of perfectly staged ‘accidents’. What impressed me most is that there is nothing happening on that stage that isn’t planned down to the precise moment of execution by this amazing cast. In addition, the physical humor and the agility of the actors getting slammed by doors and trays plus the acrobatics perpetrated by all, including some of the, shall we say, heftier actors, is a thing of beauty as well. Combine that with the acting, overacting, missed cues, forgotten lines, and pratfalls and you have the audience laughing non-stop through both acts and remembering The Play That Goes Wrong long after the curtain (and more) comes down.
Director John Rando has no trouble with the fact that THE NEW YORKERS is a series of songs with barely enough plot to keep the show from being designated a revue or vaudeville (not that there would be a problem with either one). But Mr. Rando ensures that even with all the numbers being launched in so many ways by different people and acts that everyone gets to shine and nothing ever clashes so that the show buckets along engagingly to its loopy conclusion (the memorable “I Happen To Like New York” chorale). Mr. Chris Bailey’s choreography has a lot to do with this because so much movement and dancing carry THE NEW YORKERS forward. A gangster battle where the machine gun fire is enacted by tap-dance emphasizes the period, plot and cartoonish nature of the show since the assailants and their would-be targets just keep happily tapping and firing. More than that, the specialties are clearly staged to make the most of the talents involved yet invoke their predecessors in the roles. In fact, where many songs have at least a line to cue them in, Messrs. Rando and Viertel know that sometimes a song should be left to fend for itself and ensure that a moment like Ms. Cyrille Aimée’s singing of “Love for Sale” stands alone as the jewel of the show as the original piece did in 1930.
Mr. Gordon Stanley is a perfectly peevish Prospector who is driven by oil and cannot see any romance beside it. He fits perfectly in with the Presidents who are played with relish by Messrs. Stephen Mo Hanan, Peter Land and J. Bernard Calloway. All the gentlemen gleefully twirl a metaphysical villainous mustache with panache, bringing their best to their anthem of greed “Just A Little Bit More” and being merrily hissable in “The Spring of Next year” where they exult in the destruction of Paris. 
One of the Countess’ aides and links from the harsh real world to her romantic existence is Mr. Lenny Wolpe’s jovial Sewerman. From his number “Pretty Garbage” and onwards Mr. Wolpe creates a man who has his mind in the most delightful of gutters, giving cheerful denials about the outrageous world below that make it seem even more wonderful and fantastic. When the Sewerman gives a “sympathetic” defense of the rich in Act Two, Mr. Wolpe extracts some wonderfully timely comedy out of the moment. 
makes a beautiful Mute – the observer of all and assistant to the Countess. For a man who will not speak, Mr. Kristopher Thompson-Bolden’s Mute is a real chatty soul and can even deliver a song with flair – allowing gesture and dance to supply the lyrics that are then picked up and sung by the other performers.
Two other Madwomen assist the Countess: Ms. Alison Fraser gives us a striking and memorable Madame Constance, Madwoman of the Market. She could have jauntily stepped out of an Edward Gorey drawing but her fancies are less gothic and more aurally and erotically absurd.
