NY EMMY WINNING EPISODE: CAROUSEL; plus THE ICEMAN COMETH

coming up on theater talk like this I start to wonder what life is and I always say two heads are better than one to figure it out [Music] from a New York City this is theater talk I'm Susan Haskins and here with me is my guest co-host Jesse Greene co-chief theatre critic of the New York Times and we are so delighted to be focusing right now on the wonderful revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's carousel at the Imperial theater we are joined by Billy Bigelow Joshua Henry Jessie Mueller Julie Jordan both Tony nominees this season and and the Einhorn the musical supervisor of the production and we're clearly at the best piano bar in New York so feel free to order we wanted to focus today on the famous scene that concludes with the most famous song from the show if I loved you but we're not spoiler alert we're probably not going to focus on the song so much itself is the incredible construction of this rather long scene actually how long is the whole scene it's around nine minutes it's quite a monolithic piece of music I mean it's Shakespearean in its construction as well as just the sort of heft and weight of how much time is given to this particular beat in the show you say monolithic and yet one of the fascinating things about the construction which you don't find a lot in Rodgers is music maybe in South Pacific to some extent and in Hammerstein's way of shaping the scene is that it is built around lots of different cells yes musical and also emotional and we're going to talk about and sample some of each of those where does it begin where do you feet where does this scene actually start what what is the set up what has just happened to young mill workers go out for a night on the town basically and we go to the carousel that's visiting and we see the Barker Billy Bigelow and we have a little little altercation with the lady that owns the carousel she basically chases us out so this scene happens almost directly after we've been chased out of the woods by mrs. Mullin all of a sudden Billy shows up and he says all right let's hang out which one of you would like to stay with me and Julie is the one that emerges and decides she wants to let me know that uh-oh this is trouble well you've just lost your job I've just lost I basically lost my job cuz I said I'm gonna stay yeah and at that time I would have talked about it in the scene if I I work at this mill I also live there in the boarding house so if I don't get home by the time the doors are closed I'm out of a job I'm out of a place to live so the stakes are very high for everyone but also very exciting so the beginning is kind of flirtatious it's maybe I'm wrong but it feels like the initial flirtation is coming from Billy at least in terms of the dialog I don't know what's going on in terms of the emotion yeah I I think Billy is on the prowl so to speak of me oh yeah you know he steps away from the the carousel and so on a night like this we're seeing what we can sort of right get away with and Billy's done this before whereas three Jordan has not for sure well so let's let's hear the bit of music and the introduction to this so-called bench scene in which we hear the beginning of this flirtation done with something hmm are you scared of me I mean after what the cop said about me taking money from girls [Music] Julianne [Music] you're a queer one Julie Jordan ain't you sorry that you didn't run away you can steal you couldn't take my money [Music] you couldn't take any you should ask can I give it to you Jordan ain't you ever have a fella you give money to no hey yeah I had a fella at all no well you must have had a fella you went walking with yes where'd you walk in the wall on a kid you won't go on a town and dance maybe or no I have to be careful of what my character well you see I'm never going to marry I'm never going to marry if I was going to marry let's start at the beginning of that you're a queer one Julie Jordan that's not the first time we've heard that phrase heuristically or lyrically in the show it was sung earlier by another cat yeah the character Carrie Pitt bridge so Julie's best friend the two girls that are sort of in the woods together what are we do so that's one of the motifs that we were talking about that we hear but that section that you just sang has three or four different cells that will recur again in the song maybe Andy you can speak to how Rogers did the job of fitting them together so that they don't sound like ten different things at one thing actually I think there was a real definitely homage to the operetta tradition in the construction of a lot of the pieces in this show because we're something like South Pacific or Sound of Music you saw a definite 32 bar song structure in this this is actually defying that especially in this intro and the geek the musical geek in me is so fascinated by this very beginning of the section because interestingly he he keeps actually raising the tension through these characters were flirting with one another actually by raising the key so actually you have that first key that they're sitting in G major and then and then as each one of them raised one another it ends up going up a half-step until a certain point where what I love about Julie is she keeps Caden singing the phrases and so I think there's a really human children for instance you know when he sings you can still go if you wanna she sings I reckon that I can't bring putting a button but she's actually it's a it's a rather sort of classical almost emotes already in traditional to say I'm gonna go in two five one and put this button on it so that it gives it a sense of actually grounding so that she can go on with her thought one of the other things I love in this while we're getting all geeky tech is there's a wonderful kind of worm turn figure and rheumatic thing that goes on that like really wretch literally ratchets up the tension on those lines like yeah when these things that and I think I think what's really interesting is it's that sort of sinewy nature really getting under her skin and there's the music help you find what's going on it really informs the the flirtation there well the real question there I mean it no one really wants to give away their hand right you know so what are you about and in that bed chromatic mmm-hmm question in the music really informs what I have to do wouldn't what I think it also ends in a very fascinating way because once you've asked the three question Jose in the woods on the beach do you love him you get one more iteration which allows her to go to her next peopie go never love no one I told you that so you're already ready for the next beat so it's this very inter interplay between the sort of how the dialogue and the music are coming in and out of one another and they're also weaving together we're gonna maybe skip a little here there's the one of the motifs coming up also heard earlier in the show brings us into the question of what would it be like if you fell in love this is and I've always thought if this is the sound of the loom it is it's that repetitive swirling figure can you're it's this a for us with it it's this sort of it's it's musically painting the sound of the balloon and and can we hear what Julie is singing when I worked in the mill even at the lune I gaze absent-minded the remove half the time the shuttle would tangle and the threads the Rope would get mixed with the food but you know she says no I don't so we get the name of the song set the idea up seemed to pull back from it yeah and then we get a chorus the delight and the trick is sort of for me to sort of like slip it in and not feel it not feel like you're announcing a song so let's hear that I can see just exactly [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] and I think you kind of she ends it on her she kind of goes oh wait I mean if I loved you one of the things Jack O'Brien was so helpful with in rehearsal is it with me and we were talking about Julie and he just kept talking about the immediacy of her she's so kind of like right hmm right there and it's interesting I the thing I also love about the scene is just how frank they are with each other they're strangers and they have so much to risk so much I mean possibly so much the game but also maybe so much to lose but they're just so open with each other sort of shockingly so and the things that they say to one another and then like we were saying this lyric and insert gets introduced about if I loved you this idea and she says what she thinks it would be like and then Billy takes on that lyric and to me it's just that wonderful moment of you look at someone and you go oh my god I'm not alone like you think about it the way I kind of think about it well I'm not crazy and and that is really underlined after you sing your chorus we then get more of the operetta development of the scene using again many of these same cells with one big additional one this time mostly from Billy's point of view this is actually one of my favorite parts of the bench scene when he we get that's unlocking of who Billy is sort of when we realized that Billy's actually a poet inside and it goes to that great Hammerstein place where the imagery becomes about the sky and the sea and how we're all meeting together but I think it's a really interesting very worldly view for a character that up to this point we've not seen anything like this out of him well let's recall that it is drawn from a play by a sense mode that is very cosmic and philosophically and beautifully condensed into what this 32 bar the section here [Music] you can't hear a sound not the turn of a leaf nor the fall we've hidden us the tides creeping up on the beach like a thief afraid to be caught stealing the land on a night like this I start to wonder what life is all [Music] and I always say two heads are better than one to figure it out so and we heard you again exactly right before this we get a figure right right before the later jumping ahead we go through Billy it has that cell and a few more that are also based on the ER and then we get to the Loom theme again only now from your point of view with a different story of what love would be and the main course second course of the song so let's hear the final [Music] [Music] circles [Music] me to tell you all afraid and shy my golden chances [Music] the best of [Music] and there's not as wonderful one quick final question is it possible can you ever get tired of singing that no it's interesting how many times this this song ends up appearing throughout the show in the ballet yeah and then in the reprieves at the end and and yet it just seems to continue to strike this great emotional chord pun intended yeah it's coming back no I mean I for me as a singer and an actor it's it's such a blessing to have stuff like this cuz you just you can continue to dig and find things and and you know and when you get to do something like this and play off of someone and have with someone like Josh it's that's half the fun of it it's like what's gonna happen tonight it's different every night yeah I just want to thank you all so much for taking of your time to come over here today and do this and perform tonight form tonight Jessie Mueller back again thank you so much Joshua Henry and and the einhorn thank you so much Jesse Green thank you so much thing can't get better than that joining me now is my co-host Jam Simpson of Broadway radio and we are so happy to be joined by director George C Wolfe who has helmed the most remarkable and wonderful production of The Iceman Cometh which is now on Broadway George congratulations thank you very much thank you thank you stars Denzel Washington in the lead role a wonderful cast destroyed my cast of people do you think everybody and out there in our audience knows this player you have to tell them about it I've come a little bit about it's set in this bar that's run by Harry hope it's all these people live there is said in 1912 and all these people are waiting around for to show up because once once or twice a year he shows up with money and he buys drinks for all these people and they're all derelict and bombs and and with very limited means and they assumed that when he shows up this time it's going to be just like it is singing and laughing and jokes and being drunk forever and ever and then he shows up and he decides he's going to save them and he's gonna save them and expose them to the lies and the illusions and the pipe dreams that are haunting them their entire lives how much of this play do you feel is about alcoholism and how much of this play because they're all a bunch of drunks yes and how much of this play is about people masking their illusions I think it's without question about people masking the illusions and and that function that alcohol plays is that it numbs you from the rage that you feel inside and so what ends up happening when Hickey shows up and starts to expose them to themselves their fear sets in and they stop drinking and as a result all these truths and anger and and frustrations and loss and defeat begins to come to the surface so it's to me the play is liquor is the great numbing impact on your spirit but it's really about that balance of truth and lies and what proportion is healthy and what proportion drags you under this play is famous for being very long but your production really moves quite fleetly part of that is your direction but part of it is that you made some cuts I don't call them cuts I call them snippets I wanted to create an incredibly muscular production I wanted to create one that has a very assaultive energy assaultive with comedy assaulted with pain I'll sort of with pathos physically very aggressive production because once again the play begins and they're looking for the liquor and Hickey shows up and he provides him with the liquor but they're unsettled so everything every single thing that is unresolved about them is coming to the surface and when that process is happening that's not a casual process that it brings out a kind of rawness a desperation and anger and a ray age and us and a sense of violation and so to me that was a strong hue as a clue as to what the play was about and also one of the things that's really interesting to me O'Neil all of his earlier work he was experimenting with form yes he was he was doing very stylized plays he was doing very very epic plays and then there's this assumption that therefore he then matured and then wrote Iceman Cometh and long day's journey and the night and I disagree with that violently I think that every single play that he ever wrote stylistically is present in Iceman Cometh so to me all of those became really interesting rhythms and dynamics which I wanted to explore and put inside of Iceman Cometh now create a a reverential mm-hmm production the one that had a vibrancy and an intensity of the young man that he was in nineteen when this play first opened in 1946 yes it was it was a failure in many senses and people said for one thing it's too long and too dark too depressing right after World War two but now don't you think it's in sync with our time one of the things that I think is so vital and so important about the play it's what do you hold on to when hopes appears to be vanished mm-hmm and we're all asking those questions we're all asking and also what as I said earlier what degree of truth and lies do we each need to allow ourselves to wake up each morning to go forward because we all do that balancing act every single day of our lives if there's too much truth it can be startling and overwhelming if it's too much lies we're disconnected from reality now I I have to ask y'all Denzel african-american man playing this part that was obviously written for a white man as did James Earl Jones and that's nothing but then in there there's the other character Joe Madden yes Joe who is being racially assaulted and to me it's just well that's the way it's cast but is there any other thinking on you well there was a very specific thing I'm just it's just in a sense that to me New York still to this day but back then it's a series of tribes and so so racial and ethnic slurs are held at each other Hickey is showing up with means with money he is of the world nobody's gonna waste time attacking him when he's providing them with money and liquor and also there's an interesting story that Joe Mott the character Terry tells a play by the brilliant Michael Potts where he said when he tried to open up his saloon he as Harry hope to sign a letter saying that he was white yeah in that context he means white in the sense that you're gonna play with us economically you're gonna bribe the police force so that therefore we won't put you out of business right so one of the things that I love about the play which is incredibly sophisticated for Neil's thinking he's viewing white not as a definition of race but as a means of playing along with the system so if you give if you give you will get which is an incredibly sophisticated it gets a big laugh but incredibly sophisticated thought process when you think about this character is being is saying this in 1912 yes written by a playwright who wrote it in 1944 also how prescient he was about addiction yeah and alcoholism and how it was going to overtake it take us I mean obviously was bringing people down when he wrote it well it's certainly a flick his family so interesting that Hickey talks about his father and one of the things that didn't sell was a we were talking about he talks about his father but he doesn't mention the mother whereas parrot his storyline is nothing but about his mother because I think he was building up the courage to write about his mother in in long day's journey is this your first O'Neil play yes is O'Neil a playwright that had interested you before absolutely 100% no and now I am completely and totally and and totally in love because one of the things that he does so brilliantly is he when you read it you don't realize how how astonishing he's captured American vernacular how astonishing he's captured New York vernacular the rhythm of his language is so brilliant and smart and incisive and and and challenging and demand and and full of vibrancy and life in need and so you know I would read it and I would just go okay yeah I get it yeah it's hard it's rough yeah I get it but now you you read it and when you start to animate it you realize how thrilling it is it's intimate its vaudevillian its epic it's surreal all of that and he's playing with all these extraordinary rhythms so you know I went from going yeah yeah yeah O'Neill to oh my god can I go on another date you know what it means he is a great great American right it truly is a great American play it's now at the Jacobs theater George Seawolf you very affably but nominated for a Tony Award for this along with Denzel Washington David Mars David Morris yeah the designers everything all right thank you so much Jen Simpson a pleasure as always thank you everyone thank you our thanks to the Friends of theater talk for their significant contribution to this production theater talk is made possible in part by the Frederick Bois foundation the Corey and Bob dinelli charitable fund the no coward foundation Kari J freeze the Dorothy straussman Foundation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs we welcome your questions or comments for theater talk thank you

Channel: Theater Talk Archive

Views: 29,361

Rating: 4.9215684 out of 5

Keywords: Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jessie Mueller, Joshua Henry, Theater Talk, The Iceman Cometh, Tony nominees, George C. Wolfe, Jesse Green, Jan Simpson, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel, Susan Haskins-Doloff, Andy Einhorn

Id: D3aox4c6NBQ

Length: 26min 46sec (1606 seconds)

Published: Wed May 23 2018