Chicago Tribune

Chris Jones

August 16, 2010

 

Watch review and clips of show

 

Unshakable love spins this four-star 'Carousel'

 

 

What makes a great “Carousel”? Some would say it's about the level of melodic color in “The Carousel Waltz,” or the force with which the Billy Bigelow delivers that famous “Soliloquy,” or how shrewdly the director navigates a world that's part New England romanticism and part mystical morality play.

 

Sure, all of that is important. But after seeing -- and mostly crying my way through -- Stacey Flaster's quietly revelatory production for Light Opera Works, I've decided that a great “Carousel” really requires one thing above all others. It requires the sheer force of Julie Jordan's selfless love for her man -- her no-good louse of a man -- to throb throughout every moment of the show, from the moment when she first sees his coiled, nervous young body to the moment when she raises her all-knowing voice in his tragic memory.

 

Natalie Ford, whose performance here is really quite extraordinary, does precisely that with the focus of a laser. You just ache for Ford in Flaster's production -- this actress has one of those magnetic vulnerabilities that recalls Judy Garland at times. You really should see and hear the fatalistic sadness that Ford layers onto “What's the Use of Wond'rin',” that most gorgeous of Richard Rodgers' melodies. But you also see a woman completely certain that love -- unshakable love -- is the only thing that really matters in life. Which is, after all, the message of “Carousel.” No more, no less.

 

And that's how Flaster gives Julie such uncommon power. I've seen this show many, many times, including Nicholas Hytner's masterfully revisionist revival in London and New York in the 1990s (the only one finer than this one, in some ways).

 

Given the gorgeous swirl of melody that constantly spins Rodgers and Hammerstein's emotional “Carousel,” you rarely think about the moments of silence. But you feel them here. When Julie tells Billy that she's having a baby, there's a long pause in which nobody moves a muscle. Ford just stares her man down.

 

And there's another crucial and oft-overlooked moment that Flaster and Ford wrestle to the ground.

 

As you likely know, the carnival barker Billy sometimes hits his Julie. She tells him that she knows why he hurts her, a line that often comes across as the words of an enabling victim. But Flaster and Ford look ahead to the next line, where Julie tells Billy that he never knew what she was thinking. Cooper David Grodin, the hugely talented young man playing Billy, seems to fall apart before your eyes at the moral authority of this woman. You never doubt who is in charge.

 

And thus you have a “Carousel” with a point of view.

 

There are many other pleasures here. George Keating and Elizabeth Lanza, who play Enoch Snow and Carrie Pipperidge, respectively, never fall into the usual comic traps, concentrating instead on showing us a very different kind of couple. Keating, whose soaring tenor is unfettered, is unafraid of looking ridiculous. But he still crafts a credible man, as unknowing of his woman, really, as is Billy. Just in a different way. Lanza, who sings a counterpoint to Ford, shows us a contrasting path through love, certainly, but a path that still has its troubles and its compromises.

 

Grodin, who is performing for the first time in the Chicago area, is a young Billy, without any of the arrogance and posturing that often afflicts this role. This is an actor who still has to grow, but his song “Soliloquy” is an exciting trip, suffused with the immediacy of youth. You instantly know why Julie loves him (he's just a kid, really) and, unlike most productions of “Carousel,” these characters easily assume the roles of surrogates in all of our own relationships. That's why this show is good.

 

There have been flashier productions of “Carousel,” more sophisticated concepts spun. But especially when you consider the physical limitations faced by Light Opera Works, which has little time in its space and must devote a lot of resources to its full orchestra, this is one of the rare times that the emotional life of a show beats above everything.

 

Smart choices abound, from the rich New England accents to the way the heavenly scenes are layered on to the show's earthly realities to the moving Louise ballet (featuring the very fine Nicole Miller). It's a contained little world of life, love and death that cut me to the quick.

 

 

Chicago Sun-Times

Hedy Weiss

August 17, 2010

 

Well-staged 'Carousel' turns up superb voices

 

RECOMMENDED

 

Talk about stark contrasts. Light Opera Works' superbly sung, gracefully staged revival of "Carousel," the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic that is fearless in addressing the pain and brutality of love (and the courage of those who submit to it all), opened on the same weekend as the Ravinia Festival's sparkling version of Irving Berlin's "Annie Get Your Gun," a musical whose take on love and romance is overwhelmingly sunny and funny, though ever truthful and at times even gently anguished.

 

Director-choreographer Stacey Flaster has crafted a lovely, straightforward production, with a dreamy quality permeating the "Carousel Waltz" sideshow and clambake scenes. And a lightning bolt of a performance by Cooper David Grodin does the rest.

As Billy Bigelow, the volatile young carousel barker unable to do anything quite right in life, Grodin uses his golden voice and easily intelligent acting to sensational effect. The New York-based actor is unquestionably a talent to watch. His soaringly sung, winningly natural rendering of Billy's "Soliloquy" could not be more ideal.

 

Natalie Ford brings simplicity and a fine voice to the role of Julie Jordan, Billy's adoring yet mistreated love. The glossy-voiced Elizabeth Lanza is perfectly sassy as Julie's more traditional yet adventurous friend Carrie Pipperidge, who marries the upwardly mobile fisherman Enoch Snow (played with great comic flair by George Keating). Winifred Faix Brown's knowing, warmly maternal Nettie Fowler is expertly limned, with Jeremy Trager a neatly sinister Jigger and Bill Chamberlain a sage Starkeeper.

 

The "Carousel" ballet is exquisitely danced by Nicole Miller and Todd Rhoades. And the large orchestra led by Roger L. Bingaman is tops, playing such gems as "If I Loved You," "What's the Use of Wond'rin?" and "You'll Never Walk Alone."

 

 

Pioneer Press

Dorothy Andries

August 17, 2010

 

A warm presentation of melancholy 'Carousel'

 

"Carousel" just may have the saddest story in all the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, though there is death and/or plenty of drama in "South Pacific," "The Sound of Music," and "The King and I" to name some of the pair's greatest hits. The audience was not spared the heartbreak in Light Opera Works production, which opened Aug. 14 and continues for two more weekends at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston.

 

The beautiful but dark waltz that opens the 1945 Broadway show warns us tragedy lies ahead. And, to make it clear, stage director Stacey Flaster had an assortment of carnival figures, some humorous, some grotesque, wandering on and off the stage -- a juggler, a ballerina, a strong man, a dancing bear and a giant bearded lady. The carousel, designed by Tom Burch, was represented by about half a dozen people walking around and around, carrying pillars which were attached to a central column. In the middle was a genuine carousel horse.

 

Into that seaside scene wander Julie Jordon, (Natalie Ford) and her friend Carrie Pipperidge (Elizabeth Lanza), friends who work in a New England mill and must be back to their dormitory at a certain hour. Standing near the carousel is the barker Billy Bigelow, (Cooper David Grodin) looking like a shady character from a Dickens novel.

 

Lanza, in her Light Opera Works debut, finds the high spirits beneath Carrie's traditional 19th century exterior. If you didn't know the story, you'd think at first that she was the female lead, since she has two songs in the first act "You're a queer one, Julie Jordan" and "When I Marry Mr. Snow." The soprano has an excellent voice and is a welcome addition to Light Opera Works stage.

 

The star, of course, is Julie Jordan, the shy one whose brave spirit leads her to both love and grief. The role was taken with grace by company veteran Ford, who starred here as Eliza in "My Fair Lady," Laurey in "Oklahoma!" and Gigi in the musical of the same name. Her voice glowed, embellished by the tenderness of the hit ballad "If I Loved You," which initially she sang to Bigelow. The music became the theme for their brief and stormy relationship. Grodin is a tall, slender man, so his Bigelow did not throw his weight around. Instead he was a tinderbox, ready to burst into flames -- harsh, difficult and finally doomed.

 

However, the character's "Soliloquy," a popular baritone solo, reveals another side of the carnival barker, obviously what Julie saw when she fell in love with him. Grodin was humorous and humble, confident and fearful, his strong voice ringing out with Bigelow's contradictory feelings on his impending fatherhood.

 

There were several other great voices on stage. George Keating was the priggish Enoch Snow, a much-needed comic relief character, and his high clear tenor was one of the pleasant surprises of the show. Winifred Faix Brown took the role of Nettie, Julie's cousin, with whom Julie and Billy, now married and unemployed, have been living. She thrilled Light Opera Works audiences when she sang "Climb Ev’ry Mountain" in their "The Sound of Music," and she did it again with "You'll Never Walk Alone," the show's powerful anthem.

 

Dancing is always an essential part of Light Opera Works productions and director Stacey Flaster gave the sailors, the girls and various town folks plenty of chances to demonstrate their skills. Colorful costumes were designed by Nikki Delhomme.

 

In the end, love does seem to triumph over death, but the story remains deeply sad. Light Opera Works gave it a warm and respectful production.

 

 

Gay Chicago

Jeff Rossen

August 16, 2010

 

Take a glorious ride on a beautiful Carousel

 

1/2

 

In his wonderful 1975 autobiography, “Musical Stages”, Richard Rodgers says that his favorite of the all the musicals he created with Oscar Hammerstein II is “Carousel.” But it almost didn’t  happen. When the team was first approached to turn the 1909 Hungarian drama “Liliom” into a musical to follow their success with ‘Oklahoma!”, they turned it down. Rodgers and Hammerstein couldn’t figure out how to put to music the dark story of a manipulative carousel barker who woos, weds, abuses and deceives a  trusting young girl who works as maid. Fortunately, they persisted in their efforts, and the result is one of the finest American musical theatre creations.

 

In 1999, Time magazine, in recapping its picks for the best the 20th century had to offer, named “Carousel” as the best musical of the century, and there are few who will argue (although I will question the magazine’s choice of one of the two  runners-up, “Evita.”). So when a company decides to produce “Carousel,” as with any classic and beloved work, it better do it well, and it better do it justice.  Light Opera Works does both, offering a moving, funny, sometimes thrilling and nothing less than exquisitely sung production.

 

Rodgers and Hammerstein moved the story’s locale to New England, but much of the rest of “Carousel” comes directly from “Liliom.” When carousel barker  Billy Bigelow (Cooper David Grodin) meets sweet millworker Julie Jordan (Natalie Ford) one night on the midway, his pursuit of her is more along the lines of searching out another in a long conquests. But there’s something about this  girl. She’s not easily swayed by his bravado (although she is obviously a bit gaga over his looks), and it appears she’s got a pretty level head on her  shoulders. And Billy sort of finds himself trapped in a corner when the carousel’s owner, Mrs. Mullin (Katherine L. Condit), becomes jealous of Billy’s interest in Julie and orders him not to let her ride the carousel again. When he refuses, she fires him.

 

Two months later, we find Billy and Julie married but not happily. He’s been abusive to her and has no job, and Billy’s been hanging  around with a old pal, sailor Jigger Craigin (Jeremy Trager), which Julie  believes can only bring trouble. But what she doesn’t know is just how serious or life-changing that trouble will be.

 

Director Stacey Flaster follows up her sensational work in Theatre at the Center’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” with an even more effective creation here. Her fluid staging begins with the charming evening on the midway that is underscored  by Rodgers’ gorgeous “Carousel Waltz” that begins the show in place of an overture. Rodgers says in “Musical Stages,” “I had become weary -- I still am -- of the sound that comes out of an orchestra pit during an overture. I tried to avoid this problem by making the audience pay attention, which I did simply by opening on a pantomime scene.”

 

Flaster has cast this production with a collection of strong-voiced actors who bring to life both the songs and the script with emotional strength and guile. Ford’s tragic heroine is as equally alluring as she is heartbreaking, and Grodin entices with his powerful vocals and just-right blend of menace and temptation. The pair’s duet on “If I Loved You” is pure magic -- watch for  the moment when Julie falls in love with Billy and see if your heart doesn’t  stop like mine did. Their individual beauty in caressing Rodgers’ melodies is the stuff of great musical theatre.

 

Elizabeth Lanza brings a wonderful earthiness to Julie’s best friend, Carrie Pipperidge, and George Keating is a droll delight as her suitor, the herring fisherman, Mr. Snow. Trager puts an impish spin on the usually much nastier Jigger, and Winifred Faix Brown lends a lusty yet comforting touch as Julie’s cousin, Nettie Fowler.

 

The second act of “Carousel” falters a bit in its construct because Rodgers and Hammerstein followed their “Oklahoma!” format and included a long ballet sequence that comes much too late in the show, but that  doesn’t stop Nicole Miller from delivering a mesmerizing dance performance as  Billy and Julie’s teenage daughter. Kudos to director Flaster for leaving the music for this, as well as the entire score, intact, and bravo to conductor  Roger L. Bingaman for bringing that score to such glorious life.

 

Splendid costuming by Nikki Delhomme, a practical single set by Tom Burch and well-planned lighting design by Andrew Meyers give “Carousel” a fine look, and Miles Polaski brings the voices and music to our ears with a crisp and clean sound design.

It’s unfortunate that Light Opera Works gives such a short run to its productions. Do whatever it takes to make sure that you don’t miss it.

 

 

New City

Dennis Polkow

August 16, 2010

 

RECOMMENDED

 

“Carousel” was Richard Rodgers’ personal favorite of all the musicals he wrote, either with lyricist Lorenz Hart or with Oscar Hammerstein II. Together, Rodgers & Hammerstein created a new kind of musical drama with 1943’s “Oklahoma!” where every song advanced the story line and every dance was done in character. The line between music and drama was so magnificently blurred that you never knew when dialogue might turn into song, or when action would turn into dance. “Carousel” followed two years later, developing even deeper characters and containing more music than “Oklahoma!” The R & H “You’ll Never Walk Alone” ending was certainly more optimistic and uplifting than Ferenc Molnár’s “Liliom,” upon which the show is based (Molnár was said to not only have approved, but to have loved it), but much of the play’s bleakness remained intact. Certainly the central character of Billy Bigelow was as earthy and tough as ever, even if he did have his more gentle moments. Indeed, there has been a trend in recent revivals and productions of “Carousel” have things be so bleak, so dark, and so non-musical in presentation that you often thought you were watching “Liliom” interrupted by background music. Thankfully, Light Opera Works is reminding us why “Carousel” was chosen by Time magazine as the best musical of the twentieth century: the music.

 

Director Stacey Flaster, who has served as a guest choreographer for the company for a number of productions but who is making her LOW directorial debut with this production, makes sure that we never forget what a dark story that this is, for sure. She has altered the R & H accidental stabbing of Billy back to Molnár’s original where Billy (Cooper David Grodin) commits suicide, and does so effectively enough that there is an audible audience gasp when he does. And the character of Jigger is here restored to a true, almost overbearing thug, albeit a thug who can sing. (Jeremy Trager virtually eats up the scenery when he is onstage.)

 

But what really matters is that when Billy and Julie (Natalie Ford) meet and go from cynical speaking to beautiful singing in their “If I Loved You” duet, it works, and it works magnificently, particularly when backed by a lush, full orchestra (conducted by Roger L. Bingaham), a rare and wonderful luxury. Also memorable is the sub-plot romance of Carrie (Elizabeth Lanza) and Mr. Snow, often a throw-away role, but here played by George Keating with the perfect blend of New England indifference and arrogance. And Winifred Faix Brown nearly steals the show with her exuberant leading of the chorus in “June is Bustin’ Out All Over” and her poignant rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

 

 

Chicago Theatre Reviews

Dan Zeff

August 17, 2010

 

Evanston - Even after 65 years, “Carousel” remains one of the luminous masterpieces in American musical theater. Sure the story gets a bit sentimental, and the comedy can be a little naïve, but the Richard Rodgers score is a classic, perfectly dovetailing with Oscar Hammerstein’s evocative lyrics and book.

 

Light Opera Works is reviving the musical for a brief run in a production that deserves to play a season at a Loop theater. So audiences will have to seize the moment. It doesn¹t get much better than this.

 

The 1945 show tells the story of the ill-fated romance between sweet young Julie Jordan and the blowhard ladies’ man Billy Bigelow. The year is 1873 and the place is New England. Like Romeo and Juliet, Julie and Billy fall in love at first sight, but after a stormy two-month marriage Billy kills himself following an attempted robbery that goes wrong. The hold-up was Billy’s attempt to raise money to provide for his wife and unborn child.

 

The first two-thirds of the story is realistic. At Billy¹s death the narrative enters fantasy land, with Billy ascending to heaven. There he meets the Starkeeper who allows him to return to earth for one day to visit his wife and daughter (such echoes of “Our Town” weave throughout the storyline).

 

The Rodgers score is not only one of his greatest, it’s one of his most functional. Even the non-hits contribute insights into character or further the plot. The score does have its share of stand-alone hits, like the “Carousel Waltz,” “If I Loved You,” “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over,” “What¹s the Use of Wond’rin?”, and “You'll Never Walk Alone.” This last song ranks among the most blatantly manipulative tearjerkers in musical theater and, as usual, by the end of the first chorus I choked up.

 

The Light Opera Works presentation is wonderfully sung, but we expect nothing less from this company. What really raises the bar of excellence is the exceptional acting level. Part of the credit goes to the cast and part to director Stacey Flaster (who also provides the choreography). I’ve never seen the “If I Loved You” wooing scene between Julie and Billy performed with such sensitivity and credibility.

 

The secondary romance between Enoch Snow and Carrie Pipperidge comes across with uncommon realism. Normally this couple occupies the stage for comic relief, but thanks to charming performances by Elizabeth Lanza and George Keating, Carrie and Enoch are sympathetic people, humorous to be sure but still human. For years, George Keating has been the actor most deserving of wider recognition in Chicagoland theater. His Enoch is a triumph of comic understatement and he sings like an operetta pro.

 

As for the two leading lovers, they couldn’t be better as presented by Natalie Ford and Cooper David Grodin. Outwardly Ford has the easier role as the innocent Julie. Still, Ford elevates Julie into a really endearing and plucky young woman, and not just a simpering all-forgiving pushover for Billy Bigelow the caddish lothario.

 

It’s Grodin who delivers an eye opening performance. We know Billy is brash and shiftless. That’s in Grodin’s performance, but also is an undercurrent of vulnerability, yearning, and emotional confusion. Beneath the wastrel exterior his Billy is a sympathetic figure whose stunted emotions don’t allow him to do and say the things he wants to do and say to communicate his love for Julie and later for his daughter. This is the most accessible and convincing Billy Bigelow I’ve ever seen, climaxed by a really thoughtful rendition of the eight-minute long “Soliloquy” on his impending fatherhood.

 

All the other characters who matter are performed at a high level by Jeremy Trager (the villainous Jigger Craigin), Winifred Faix Brown (Nettie Fowler), Bill Chamberlain (the Starkeeper), and Katherine L. Condit (Mrs. Mullin). Nicole Miller makes a late appearance as Billy’s 15-year old daughter, primarily in the ballet scene, an exceptionally well conceived extended piece created by Stacey Flaster. It’s dramatic, graceful, and sexy -- part pure dance and part fluent narrative. The large chorus does well in the ensemble singing and dancing bits, though none of the dances rival the ballet in dramatic or theatrical merit.

 

In recent seasons, Light Opera Works has raised its physical productions to new levels of creativity and professionalism. This production goes to the head of the class with Tom Burch’s atmospheric set designs, Nikki Delhomme’s colorful period costumes, Andrew Meyers’s mood-setting lighting, and Miles Polaski’s sound design. As always, Roger L. Bingaman majestically directs the Broadway-caliber pit orchestra.