I love the music of Carousel. The story would not work in this day and age. Is there any way a revised version without the domestic violence could work on Broadway?
June is busting out all over…
I don’t understand why you say the story would not work because of the domestic violence?
The audience for such an endeavor would be smart enough to understand that different times had different standards. And there’s more anachronism than the domestic violence. It’s still a great story with even greater music.
There appears to have been a 1994 revival (See ref. 19) which was well after domestic violence was considered a no-no, so I don’t see any reason why there couldn’t be another one.
There was what I thought was a fairly successful (award winning) Broadway revival in 1994. I understand that 16 years may seem like a long time to you young’uns, but people weren’t exactly winking at spousal abuse then.
[curse you for outdrawing me, Voyager! You win this time… 
]
Are you talking about as a play or a movie? There was a successful Broadway revival of *Carousel *in the 90s. However, many critics did comment at the time that the show’s treatment of domestic violence was rather jarring to current sensibilities.
One thing the 1990s revival did was try to make the tone a bit darker and thus closer to the original play Carousel was based on, Ferenc Molnár’s Liliom. Doing the same for a revival today might make the domestic violence element less jarring. However, you’d probably then get people used to the “sunnier” version of the musical (in particular, the 1956 film adaptation) complaining about it being too dark and depressing.
I never saw Carousel as a “sunny” musical. Is that how it is generally thought of??? Tragedy permeates it. Even the happy stuff with Mr. and Mrs. Snow is excruciatingly poignant, because of the contrast with Julie’s life. The whole darn show makes me cry.
Showboat, West Side Story… not exactly sunny either. I consider all of them more opera than musical comedy in terms of plot.
Plus, Mr. Snow is a prig and a dick. He’s mocked in a couple of songs by…well…everyone but Carrie (“There’s nothin’ so bad fer a woman as a man who thinks he’s good”) and while he’s not abusive, Carrie sure didn’t get what she wanted—doesn’t she have like 12 kids (which in the first act she objected to). Her spirit seems broken by the end that I don’t think she has more than one or two lines in the entire second act.
The problematic bit is that Billy gets into heaven because he smacked his kid in the face. The “Momma, has someone ever hit you and it felt like a kiss?” / “Yes. Someone can hit you sometimes and it’s meant lovingly” (paraphrase, but damned close) interchange following doesn’t hurt either.
I think it could be tweaked just the tiniest bit.
Billy hits the kid. Kid runs to Julie. “Momma: has someone ever hit you but it felt like a kiss?” / “Sort of–your father wasn’t very bright and sometimes he hit me. It wasn’t right but I knew he did it because he was frustrated and unable to say what he wanted. It didn’t feel like a kiss–but he wasn’t trying to hurt me…he just did.” and Billy gets an explicit downgrade from the Starkeeper
Then, during the “When You Walk Through A Storm” graduation scene, Billy finally learns to talk, even if it’s just agreeing. He (invisibly to her) starts telling her “Yeah…listen to the words, kid. I’m not bright enough to say 'em, but I know they’re right. Listen to 'em and don’t end up like me.” and with his urging she goes and joins the community.
That’s pretty much what happens-one small line of dialogue (Julie’s bizarre agreement that hey, abuse can be ok) has to be changed and one or two sentences from the Starkeeper to make it crystal-clear that smacking the kid didn’t get him into heaven, talking to her and helping her was just barely enough to squeek in is all you’d need.
A harder one to fix is The Fantasticks.
The premise: Two single dads who are best friends share a property line. They want their kids to get married. Naturally the kids loathe each other. They build a fence and forbid the kids to see each other. Of course, this makes the kids want to…but how to push them into marriage? They decide to have the girl be abducted by an actor who’s pretending to be a rapist. The boy will save her before anything happens, the feud will be over and everyone will live happily ever after (until act 2 when it turns out that…um…stuff that’s romantic in the moonlight is kinda retarded at noon.
Anyway, there’s a jolly, toetapping song “It Depends On What You Pay” where the actor is telling the dads the cost of various rape scenarios:
Actor: Now I know you prefer the word abduction but the proper word is “rape”. It’s short and businesslike.
*You can get the rape fantastic
You can get the rape polite
You can get the rape with Indians
(a truly charming sight)
You can get the rape on horseback
(they all say it’s new and gay!)
But you see the sort of rape depends on what you pay
It depends on what you pay.
*
And it goes on like that for several more verses (getting weirder and darker-"The comic rape. Perhaps it’s just a trife < boing-sound > too unique. The drunken rape-it’s done completely in a cheap saloon (“Nothing cheap!” the girl’s dad yells), with the dads (who were kinda reluctant at first) really getting into the whole thing (“I say they’re only young once, let’s order them a first-class rape!”).
The author tried to fix it for the '80s by replacing the word “rape” with “abduction” in the song but it doesn’t scan and you miss out on the entire creepy part of the dads singing about the pretend rape of the girl. And you can’t cut it out, it’s the key to the whole first act. Without it, you don’t have a first act.
But people still get pissed about it.
I think Fenris absolutely nailed it. The problem isn’t so much the violence against women; the problem is their acceptance of it and his lack of remorse.
When the Starkeeper says “Are you sorry you hit her?” and Billy says "I ain’t sorry for nothin’. ", I’ve always wanted the Starkeeper to say “Well, fuck you, then - go to Hell, see how you make out - ASSHOLE!” as the curtain slowly descends.
It’s still glorious music, but I can’t see that story flying anymore as it’s written - and I don’t know how the various estates feel about changing it around…
Fenris, I’m quite familiar with The Fantasticks, having performed it whole and in parts numerous times in college and after. The rape scene/song might be a little more politically incorrect now, but its charm in the 1960’s when the play was at its height was the deliberate use of the word in a light-hearted juxtaposition with reality.
Dworkin & MacKinnon might not agree, but I imagine they didn’t like it much in the first place.
I don’t think that would be true to Hammerstein* who was possibly the most…pro-human? Humanist? musical writer ever. Just about every major musical he did was about redemption and/or community.
You could fix that scene in another way…remember: Billy’s big issue is that, despite being a fast-talking carnival barker who can get pretty damned lyrical, he has absolutely no idea how to express his feelings. So fix it by not having the Starkeeper accept the answer and tell Billy that he’s got one last chance at the graduation to fix things–and since he hit her, he’s not going to be allowed another chance. ALL he’ll be allowed to do is talk and he better make it count.
*Although I agree with the sentiment, especially if they leave in that line at the beginning of act 2 where Billy tells whatshisname–the punk–that he’s hit Julie more than once.
Well, personally, I think Carousel is by far the weakest R&H musical, with a weak score (other than the Carousel Waltz, the music is among Rodger’s worst – half forgettable, half overly bombastic). It tries to be “inspirational” with all the drawbacks that adjective implies when applied to music.
R&H had used vapid (and even somewhat despicable*) heroes before in Oklahoma, but didn’t try to make them anything more than they were. Here he tries to apotheosize them, and it just doesn’t work.
The abuse is just a little lagniappe.
*What else would you call a man who walks up and says, “Hi, Judd. Why don’t you do us all a favor and commit suicide?” Humanist, hah!
Nope, it’s more than 25 years old.
That, more or less, is what happens in Liliom. However, R&H were definitely not going to let their musical version end that way. They weren’t Brecht and Weill.
Maybe “sentimentalist” is more accurate.
Incidentally, a lot of these points were discussed in this previous thread on Carouselfrom about 18 months ago.
Also, getting back to the OP, I’d still like to know whether we’re talking about a revival of Carousel on stage or on screen?
On stage. I’ve seen the movie and it is fine for what it is. I’ve only seen it on stage once and I was far too young to appreciate it. I liked the music but I found the second part of the show to be hard to deal with.
Bumping this ‘cause I saw the movie today (well, most of it) for the first time and was surprised at how bored I was. I’m a huuuge fan of R&H musicals and musicals in general, but what surprised me about Carousel is how uninteresting many of the songs are, aside from the overture, “If I Loved You,” "What’s the Use of Wonderin’?" and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Okay, that’s four more songs than many other musicals can muster, but still. 
What killed me were the unbelievably dull “June is Busting Out All Over” and “This Was a Real Nice Clambake” numbers. One of the many things I love about R&H musicals is how little chaff is among the wheat. The songs almost always propel the story or characterization in some way – or they reveal something about the setting/time of the play. With these two songs, all they did (especially “June…”) was showcase the chorus and an interminable dance number. None of the main or even secondary characters had anything to do! The equivalent songs in Oklahoma, “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City” and “Farmer and the Cowman,” were much more efficient and illuminating. Though not essential to the play, they told us a bit about Will Parker, Curly, Ado Annie’s father (I forget his name), Aunt Eller, and the community as a whole.
Then there’s the general unlikeability of the two leads. I don’t mind Billy being a jerk, but my God, Julie was such a sap I wanted to give her a slap! In fairness I didn’t stick around to the very end because I had to go out, but I do know the very ending – I’ve seen the graduation scene before.
I will say that Gordon MacRae is staggeringly wonderful, as always. What a fabulous, powerful singer, and gives Billy both charm and truculence. He doesn’t flinch from being unsympathetic. And Shirley Jones sounded stronger than I’ve ever heard her. I’m afraid I really didn’t like Barbara Ruick, though. Her vocal affectations were so cloying and cutesy, ugh.
Anyway, aside from this lengthy diatribe, I also wanted to mention that apparently Hugh Jackman – who starred as Billy in a concert version in Carnegie Hall a few years ago – is supposedly developing a new film version. From BroadwayWorld in May 2009:
Jackman can certainly do the role. Not sure about Hathaway, but I do believe she can sing. It’ll be interesting to see if this really transpires. What do you guys think?
I call him “An unreserved hero”, given that Judd was
A) A multiple murderer
B) An arsonist
C) A multiple attempted rapist
D) Possibly an actual rapist
It’s not like Judd was just a poor cowhand, who evil Curly was picking on.
The revival marked the Broadway debut of Audra McDonald, and was her first Tony win. She is a theatre goddess.
LastDay. Year of the City 2310. Carousel beg…
Oh. Sorry.
I’ll have to disagree with you on that point. MacRae was adequate but I think the movie would’ve been a lot more memorable had Frank Sinatra, who was originally cast as Bigelow, not quit several days into production.
Jackman and Hathaway might work but I’m more curious about who they’d get to direct. For example, I think Martin Scorsese might be an interesting choice. I realize a director whose best-known movies involve thugs, psychopaths, disturbing violence, and dialogue consisting of the seven words you can’t say on television may seem like an odd candidate but there are actually several reasons why it might work. First, I think Scorsese would be up for it. He’s often said he never wanted to get pinned down into one type of movie (e.g., gangster pics like Goodfellas) and would like to delve into another genre like a musical. Second, many of Scorsese’s movies are about how a deeply flawed main character attempts (and sometimes fails) to achieve grace and redemption for his sins. Billy Bigelow is very much a character along those lines. Third, he would probably cut back on the more saccharine and cornball aspects of the show, eliminate the chaff (e.g., the “Clambake” number), increase the realism, and more effectively deal with its darker elements (like domestic abuse).