New Musical In Manhattan

Carousel (music by Richard Rodgers; book & lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; produced by the Theatre Guild). All Oklahoma's horses and all Oklahoma's men have put another charmer together again. But Oklahoma's and Carousel's Composer Rodgers, Librettist Hammerstein, Choreographer Agnes de Mille, Director Rouben Mamoulian, Costume Designer Miles White have not repeated themselves. Carousel strays pretty far from Oklahoma!, just as it shies completely away from Broadway. A reworking of Ferenc Molnar's Liliom, it is not a musicomedy but a lovely and appealing "musical play."

Carousel has moved Liliom from 20th-century Budapest to 19th-Century New England, and renamed the swaggering, bad-tempered barker Billy Bigelow. It has also, to its loss, reduced his swagger and taken away his Continental, scamp-like grace. But it tells much the same story and weaves much the same mood. Billy acts tough for fear of seeming tender, beats his wife lest he reveal he loves her. He commits a crime for his unborn child's sake, dies, leans carelessly against the bar of Heaven, returns to Earth for a day to try to do a good deed.

If Librettist Hammerstein has not given Carousel the full flavor of Molnar, at least he has given it all the interest of a true play. His script is always simple, sometimes touching, never flashy, only here & there a little cute. And Composer Rodgers has swathed it in one of his warmest and most velvety scores. More than a succession of tunes, the music helps interpret the story; it has operatic climaxes, choral fullness, choreographic lilt. But it is still in tunes that Composer Rodger's real magic lies--whether the tender If I Loved You, the light, murmurous This Was a Real Nice Clam Bake, the full-throated sweetness of June Is Bustin' Out All Over. And Hammerstein has caught their spirit with his lyrics.

Jo Mielziner's sets and Miles White's costumes splash Carousel with color, and Agnes de Mille's dances--particularly a fine lively hornpipe--give it a pulse as

well as a heart.

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Oscar Hammerstein II could pretty nearly justify his title of No. 1 U.S. librettist just by pointing to the two best-loved of all modern musicals--Show Boat and Oklahoma! But he has also written the libretto or lyrics (or both) for such hits as Rose Marie, The Desert Song, The New Moon, Carmen Jones; his are the words of 01' Man River, Lover Come Back to Me, Stout-Hearted, Men, Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' and--the only song he ever wrote for himself and not for a show--The Last Time I Saw Paris.

As a lyric writer, Hammerstein has never equaled Lorenz Hart for inventiveness or Cole Porter for sophistication. But he is always serviceable, often scintillating. He gets more meaning, character and humanity into his book-writing than most of his rivals. One reason may be that many of his librettos were discerningly adapted from fairly full-blooded material. Another likely reason: Hammerstein lacks the typical Tin Pan Alley taste and the blatantly Broadway mind. He is ruefully conscious that the librettist is the whipping boy of musicomedy, the first to be blamed for a failure, the last to get credit for a success. In musicomedy, however, the whipping boy's wages are a fair compensation. Hammerstein's current earnings are well over $300,000 a year.

Don't Mention Opera. Hammerstein was born 49 years ago into a great theatrical tribe. His father, William, produced vaudeville; his Uncle Arthur produced musicals; his cousin Elaine became a screen star in silent days. But it was his grandfather, bearded, cigar-mauling, top-hatted Oscar I, the most spectacular impresario of his time, who made the name Hammerstein a near-synonym for Broadway. Oscar I was said to have occupied more newspaper space during his heyday than any other American except Theodore Roosevelt. A reckless and rambunctious man, Oscar I made millions in vaudeville and operetta, lost them on grand opera. "The word opera," says Oscar II, "was a nightmare to everyone in the family." Unlike his other grandfather (who used to take little Oscar on rambles and give him whiskey punch before breakfast and Guinness' Stout after supper) ripsnorting old Oscar I never paid the slightest attention to his namesake.

The family did not want young Oscar to follow in its footsteps. But while studying law at Columbia he got involved in college dramatics, soon found himself working for Uncle Arthur. After a couple of minor musicomedy tries, Oscar clicked with Wildflower, went on to write--during the 20s -- a half dozen of the best-known musicals in Broadway history.

What Goes Up ... In the 30s Hammerstein went into a tail spin. Called to Hollywood when sound pictures started up, he helped turn out some very unsound ones. Back on Broadway, he had one or two mild successes and a string of flops. And then came Oklahoma!

Beyond being Hammerstein's biggest plum, Oklahoma! may have started his greatest partnership. He and Composer Rodgers have a second smash in Carousel; as Broadway producers, they are cleaning up on John van Druten's I Remember Mama; under the title of Williamson Music Inc. (both their fathers were named William), they are highly successful music publishers; Hollywood is excited over the forthcoming cinemusical they have made of State Fair; and they have plans afoot for another Broadway show.

Modest, methodical Oscar II has a collaborator's temperament, as well as talent. If he quite lacks his grandfather's color ("I am rather uninteresting") he also lacks the old man's choler. His private life also lacks the gaudy touch. "I guess I have never been young enough," he confesses, "to enjoy night clubs. I don't understand what goes on after 1 a.m.--but I doubt if anything very profound is said." A family man (he has been married twice), he does not smoke, seldom drinks, spends as much time as possible on his Doylestown, Pa. farm, where he grows wheat and alfalfa and raises Aberdeen-Angus cattle. His one eccentricity is that he writes standing up. But even that is based on logic: he paces so much when working that it saves time not to sit down at all.

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