“Carousel”--! It’s coming. Here’s what you need to know.
-“Is it possible to be struck and not to feel a thing?” This is the line that gives people such concern. How can we have a female character saying these words? Don’t we need Strong Female Characters??? To that, I say: Pshaw. I’m reading Philip Roth’s “Patrimony” right now. It’s about struggling to accommodate human weaknesses. It’s about Roth walking with his aging father, who behaves in some bearish and embarrassing ways; it’s about Roth struggling--and generally succeeding--to find compassion for his father, who is, after all, a flawed and suffering human being. That’s what “Carousel” is about, as well. If you can’t handle that, then go and spend your money on a Marvel superhero movie.
-This is a profoundly strange story. In “Psycho,” Hitchcock famously kills off his heroine around the halfway point of the movie. Something like that happens in “Carousel,” as well. Billy Bigelow falls for Julie Jordan; they’re too young; they find themselves “with child,” anyway. Billy freaks out about how to provide for his daughter. He gets involved in an ill-advised robbery attempt; it fails; hot-headed, he opts for suicide. Then he gets an opportunity from Beyond the Grave to revisit his daughter and make amends. But he fucks that up, as well. He gets impatient with the daughter and strikes her. Then he regroups. (He who hesitates is not lost.) On the eve of his daughter’s high-school graduation, he whispers, “I’ve loved you. I’ve always loved you.” And we see the daughter graduate. Curtain. Among other things, the story makes me think of people in my own family who have had messy lives, and who have struggled with inarticulateness. I have an uncle who could have been a prototype for Billy Bigelow! It’s rare to see this stuff in a Broadway musical.
-Here’s the lineup. These are among the most famous songs in American songwriting. It’s as if Michael Phelps were there, winning gold after gold after gold after gold. The Carousel Waltz. If I Loved You. Mr. Snow. June Is Bustin’ Out All Over. Soliloquy. That Was a Real Nice Clam-bake. You’ll Never Walk Alone. When the Children Are Asleep. What’s the Use of Wondrin’. It’s hard to overstate the triumph that is this particular catalogue. (Sidenote: Hammerstein worked with a self-doubting Irving Berlin on “Annie Get Your Gun.” “I don’t know how to write in a folksy way,” said Berlin. “Sure you do,” said Hammerstein. “You just drop the “g” from the ends of your words. You’ll be writin’ well in no time.”)
-Hammerstein messed up a verse from “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over.” “The sheep aren’t sheepish anymore! All the rams that chase the ewe-sheep are determined there’ll be new sheep...And the ewe-sheep aren’t even keepin’ score!” “Sheep-mating actually doesn’t happen in the spring/summer,” wrote one concerned fan. “It happens in the autumn.” But Hammerstein couldn’t let go of this verse. “It happens in the autumn,” he replied, “except for this one freakish year. In this one freakish year, it happened in spring!” Hammerstein had an agenda with “Carousel”; he wanted to make New Englanders seem lusty and vibrant. He felt they had all been unfairly tarred as “pleasure-hating Puritans.” Well--whatever puts the wind in your sails, that works for me! In “June,” you can see form underling content again and again, and you can imagine a young Stephen Sondheim, who famously sobbed at the opening of “Carousel,” absorbing his mentor’s lessons. “Buds are bustin’ out of bushes and the rompin’ river pushes every little wheel that wheels beside the mill.” The alliteration, the explosion of “b” and “p” sounds; we think we’re hearing about flowers, but really we’re hearing about frenzied lust! (In another work, “State Fair,” Rodgers would alter his melody, adding “octave jumps,” to match Hammerstein’s sense of being “jumpy as a puppet on a string.” Again: form underlines content.)
-Sondheim called “the bench scene” the “most formative scene in the history of contemporary musical theater.” This is an awkward moment where Billy and Julie sit on a bench and try to work out their feelings for each other. They slip in and out of song--easily. “Somehow I can see just exactly how I’d be--if I loved you.” R and H were being quietly revolutionary. Why do you have to wait for a big intro to burst into song? What if the singing felt as casual as speaking? You can see the impact in Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd,” “Sunday in the Park,” and “Passion.” Also, Sondheim identifies one “Carousel” song--“What’s the Use of Wondrin’”--as the single most powerful song Hammerstein ever wrote. (I think he’s right. I very much like how this song contrasts animal instincts with the silliness of the civilized world. The song says, there are myths about the way we should behave, and then there are the ways in which we actually behave. It’s a song about common sense. “He’s yer fella, and you love him, and all the rest is talk.” People regret that “talk” is a hard word to sing; you struggle to stretch it out. But I love the abruptness of “talk”: It’s like a splash of cold water. It seems to say: Snap out of it. Get real. And I think that that’s what Julie is saying throughout the song.)
-A tip of the hat to Todd Purdum, whose new book, “Something Wonderful,” gives you not only an analysis of the great, historic verses, but also a peek at the failed first drafts. I haven’t even talked about the towering Joshua Henry, who made a splash with the Broadway revival of “Violet,” and who will be a Big Fucking Deal as Billy Bigelow. I promise that. Stay tuned.
-P.S. Why “The Carousel Waltz”? Because Hammerstein was a shrewd businessman. He knew that people don’t pay attention to overtures. (Want proof? Go see the revival of “Hello, Dolly,” where, in maddening, idiotic fashion, bovine, empty-headed Americans flap their useless jaws all through the first five minutes of the show, over and over again.) And so: Down with the overture! Hammerstein was no dummy.
-“Is it possible to be struck and not to feel a thing?” This is the line that gives people such concern. How can we have a female character saying these words? Don’t we need Strong Female Characters??? To that, I say: Pshaw. I’m reading Philip Roth’s “Patrimony” right now. It’s about struggling to accommodate human weaknesses. It’s about Roth walking with his aging father, who behaves in some bearish and embarrassing ways; it’s about Roth struggling--and generally succeeding--to find compassion for his father, who is, after all, a flawed and suffering human being. That’s what “Carousel” is about, as well. If you can’t handle that, then go and spend your money on a Marvel superhero movie.
-This is a profoundly strange story. In “Psycho,” Hitchcock famously kills off his heroine around the halfway point of the movie. Something like that happens in “Carousel,” as well. Billy Bigelow falls for Julie Jordan; they’re too young; they find themselves “with child,” anyway. Billy freaks out about how to provide for his daughter. He gets involved in an ill-advised robbery attempt; it fails; hot-headed, he opts for suicide. Then he gets an opportunity from Beyond the Grave to revisit his daughter and make amends. But he fucks that up, as well. He gets impatient with the daughter and strikes her. Then he regroups. (He who hesitates is not lost.) On the eve of his daughter’s high-school graduation, he whispers, “I’ve loved you. I’ve always loved you.” And we see the daughter graduate. Curtain. Among other things, the story makes me think of people in my own family who have had messy lives, and who have struggled with inarticulateness. I have an uncle who could have been a prototype for Billy Bigelow! It’s rare to see this stuff in a Broadway musical.
-Here’s the lineup. These are among the most famous songs in American songwriting. It’s as if Michael Phelps were there, winning gold after gold after gold after gold. The Carousel Waltz. If I Loved You. Mr. Snow. June Is Bustin’ Out All Over. Soliloquy. That Was a Real Nice Clam-bake. You’ll Never Walk Alone. When the Children Are Asleep. What’s the Use of Wondrin’. It’s hard to overstate the triumph that is this particular catalogue. (Sidenote: Hammerstein worked with a self-doubting Irving Berlin on “Annie Get Your Gun.” “I don’t know how to write in a folksy way,” said Berlin. “Sure you do,” said Hammerstein. “You just drop the “g” from the ends of your words. You’ll be writin’ well in no time.”)
-Hammerstein messed up a verse from “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over.” “The sheep aren’t sheepish anymore! All the rams that chase the ewe-sheep are determined there’ll be new sheep...And the ewe-sheep aren’t even keepin’ score!” “Sheep-mating actually doesn’t happen in the spring/summer,” wrote one concerned fan. “It happens in the autumn.” But Hammerstein couldn’t let go of this verse. “It happens in the autumn,” he replied, “except for this one freakish year. In this one freakish year, it happened in spring!” Hammerstein had an agenda with “Carousel”; he wanted to make New Englanders seem lusty and vibrant. He felt they had all been unfairly tarred as “pleasure-hating Puritans.” Well--whatever puts the wind in your sails, that works for me! In “June,” you can see form underling content again and again, and you can imagine a young Stephen Sondheim, who famously sobbed at the opening of “Carousel,” absorbing his mentor’s lessons. “Buds are bustin’ out of bushes and the rompin’ river pushes every little wheel that wheels beside the mill.” The alliteration, the explosion of “b” and “p” sounds; we think we’re hearing about flowers, but really we’re hearing about frenzied lust! (In another work, “State Fair,” Rodgers would alter his melody, adding “octave jumps,” to match Hammerstein’s sense of being “jumpy as a puppet on a string.” Again: form underlines content.)
-Sondheim called “the bench scene” the “most formative scene in the history of contemporary musical theater.” This is an awkward moment where Billy and Julie sit on a bench and try to work out their feelings for each other. They slip in and out of song--easily. “Somehow I can see just exactly how I’d be--if I loved you.” R and H were being quietly revolutionary. Why do you have to wait for a big intro to burst into song? What if the singing felt as casual as speaking? You can see the impact in Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd,” “Sunday in the Park,” and “Passion.” Also, Sondheim identifies one “Carousel” song--“What’s the Use of Wondrin’”--as the single most powerful song Hammerstein ever wrote. (I think he’s right. I very much like how this song contrasts animal instincts with the silliness of the civilized world. The song says, there are myths about the way we should behave, and then there are the ways in which we actually behave. It’s a song about common sense. “He’s yer fella, and you love him, and all the rest is talk.” People regret that “talk” is a hard word to sing; you struggle to stretch it out. But I love the abruptness of “talk”: It’s like a splash of cold water. It seems to say: Snap out of it. Get real. And I think that that’s what Julie is saying throughout the song.)
-A tip of the hat to Todd Purdum, whose new book, “Something Wonderful,” gives you not only an analysis of the great, historic verses, but also a peek at the failed first drafts. I haven’t even talked about the towering Joshua Henry, who made a splash with the Broadway revival of “Violet,” and who will be a Big Fucking Deal as Billy Bigelow. I promise that. Stay tuned.
-P.S. Why “The Carousel Waltz”? Because Hammerstein was a shrewd businessman. He knew that people don’t pay attention to overtures. (Want proof? Go see the revival of “Hello, Dolly,” where, in maddening, idiotic fashion, bovine, empty-headed Americans flap their useless jaws all through the first five minutes of the show, over and over again.) And so: Down with the overture! Hammerstein was no dummy.
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