Third time's not a charm

I just picked up the RNH boxed set at a garage sale, and was looking forward to watching the musicals I hadn’t seen yet. I’d heard good things about Carousel and watched it with high hopes, but was unimpressed. So I jumped on imdb and surprise! it is apparently quite popular and rates somewhat highly. “It has some great songs, great acting, great other stuff, et cetera” and I thought “I need to watch that again.” So I did, trying to pay attention to the stuff other viewers had pointed out. Some of it was okay, but I thought very little was great. After letting the experience ferment for two months I just got finished watching it a third time.

Nope.

Some things that bothered me:

First off, it has NOTHING to do with a carousel. I’ve been trying to come up with some symbolic meaning like the characters’ lives were a carousel or something about the ups and downs of life, but there are no ups and downs in their lives. They are all downs. And anyway, if any symbolism is not readily apparent, it doesn’t work.

I didn’t like the establishment of Billy’s character. He is supposed to be this fantastic barker who reels in customers hand over fist and is a real lady-killer, but we never see any of that. We know about it only because other characters say it. We have to assume they are correct, because nothing in Billy’s actions points to him having any persuasive skills in the areas of women or entertainment dollars.

At the beginning, we hear “Billy! Your family is in trouble!” like there is some catastrophic situation on the home front. They are about to lose their home, Julie is going to debtor’s prison, Julie is being forced to marry some jerk—all these possibilities were running through my head. But no, it was…ummmm…what was it again? His daughter doesn’t get along with the other kids? And the resolution of the problem? Apparently realized when he whispers to her at her graduation. I think a crisis that bookends the entire production should have a little more of an impact.

But I was most bothered by the uninspiring music and musical numbers. It is a musical. By nature, musicals are cheesy. (Don’t get me wrong—I love musicals.) Anytime a character bursts into song you have left reality behind and there is a bit of a “here we go again” feeling. So the song better either be catchy or I need something inspiring to watch, like great (or even not-so-great) choreography. Both are sadly missing. The best dance number was the “Spring busting out” but it was sort of a fish out of water that interrupted the story and didn’t incorporate any of the main characters. As far as songs go, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was by far the best, and could even rate high on the list of all-time musical songs. Too bad it lasted all of one minute and 35 seconds. All of the other songs were quite forgettable. In fact, I’ve forgotten them.

I’ll stop here. I hate reading long posts so don’t want to be an abuser of my own peeve (too late?) As a final thought, I’ll add that though I didn’t like this, I can see how some might. What I can’t understand is how some people love it and say it is among the best musicals ever. What could you folks have possibly seen?