Many
people have a love-hate relationship with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. While multitudes adore the
rich music and enduring tale that those two geniuses produced, others are repelled by the sexism
and casual acceptance of abuse that pokes through. Not to mention a plot that
lurches uncomfortably at times.
Whatever
camp you’re in, this dazzling production will likely make you a lover. Directed
with passion and precision by Scott Plate, the ever-spinning circles—life and
death, romance and rejection, misdeeds and redemption—whirl into a most
memorable event.
Adapted
by R&H from a play set in Budapest, this iconic musical takes place on the Maine
seacoast in 1904. Scenic designer Jeff Herrmann’s in-the-round set features a central,
circular wooden deck bleached by sun and salt water, where the locals cavort. The
set functions splendidly on several levels. It offers the performers ample room
to dance, since Gregory Daniels’ muscular and often sensuous choreography
requires some serious elbowroom.
But
viewed symbolically, the circle with two attached runways neatly overlays the
two gender symbols for man ♂ and woman ♀, joining
them at the shared circle. This allows the women to head off one way, flouncing through
their kitchen door, and the men to romp the opposite way, up onto the rigging of
a ship’s mast. Freud could have had a field day with this set.
And it comes to life, gloriously, in the opening “Carousel Walttz,” an
overture complete with clever mini-vignettes and a human carousel that earns
it’s own applause even before the prologue is complete.
Since
this is a BWU production, four major roles are double cast to provide more
opportunities for their preternaturally talented students. On this night, Kyle-Jean Baptiste and Caroline
Murrah played the star-crossed lovers Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan.
Baptiste
creates a brash and brawling Billy, and his tender/tough rendition of the
surpassingly intricate “Soliloquy” is enough to bring you to your feet. Murrah
handles the subtler role of Julie with a deft touch, enabling us to relate to
her character’s sweet passivity as an artifact of the time (or at least, we
wish it were so).
As
for the other two double-cast performers, Mary Mondlock infuses Carrie
Pipperidge with sprightly energy and Anthony Sagaria evolves her main squeeze
Enoch Snow from a taciturn stud to a rigid pain in the ass.
Among
the permanent cast members, Brandyn Day is alternately amusing and scary as
Billy’s snarky buddy Jigger Craigin. And Lissy Gulick is just adorable as
Nettie Fowler, crooning “You’ll Never Walk Alone” so melodically, Jerry Lewis
must be somewhere weeping. As Mrs. Mullin, the vindictive owner of the
carousel, Sara Zoe Budnik is fine although she could add a bit more edge and
orneriness.
The
voices of all the performers range from very good to exceptional, as one has come to
expect from the B-W Department of Theatre and Dance and the Conservatory of
Music. They are accompanied in this production by just two grand pianos, played
with admirable nuance by music director Andrew Leslie Cooper and music
supervisor Nancy Maier.
Even
if some of the plot points are curious (When exactly did Billy and Julie get
married? A posthumous good deed absolves all the crap you did when you were
alive? Really?), this production sweeps you away with its spirit.
Indeed,
it’s a play with so many perfect moments along with a handful of off-notes that
it’s impossible to get all of it right all the time. But this production comes
damn close.
Word
has it that the short run is completely sold out. However, if someone offers
you a couple tickets they bought and you’re getting married that night,
postpone the wedding. You can get hooked any day, but you’re not likely to see
a performance of Carousel as
wonderful as this anytime soon.
Carousel
Through
November 24, produced by the Baldwin Wallace University Department of Theatre
and Dance & the Conservatory of Music, Kleist Center for Art and Drama,
bw.edu/theatre
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