i pulled it from a maiden in a tower

THIS MAY LOOK LIKE A VIDEO OF “HELLO, DOLLY” (AND IT IS), BUT THIS IS ACTUALLY A POST ABOUT CARRIE 

The entire first two weeks of rehearsal for the original production of HELLO DOLLY were spent on the title number (and the waiter’s gallop that leads up to it).  Gower Champion insisted that he needed to figure out what he knew needed to be the central showcase number so he would know the “height” the musical needed to be.  When viewed here, the number is the show stopped to end-all show stoppers, and has chorus boys literally leaping over the orchestra pit with excitement.  This was a show that clearly had room for other grand production numbers (“Put on Your Sunday Clothes”, “Before the Parade Passes By”) the size of which alone dwarf the size of other shows’ Act 1 closers.

I feel like, for a musical version of CARRIE, the height defining moment is the Prom.  Both Carrie’s magical experience of arriving and, of course, the horrible and HORRIFYING end.  The “height” of that production is precisely the distance between those two points and should be past even the borders of our imagination.  

At the Lortel, Carrie and Tommy walked into a bland up-tempo company number and sang reprise.  Tommy wasn’t even wearing a tux (nor was anyone else, despite numerous references to tuxedo rentals in script and score).  At the climax a bloodless Carrie (bathed instead in a red projection) sings more reprises as the company writhes on the floor while more projections (of fire) cover the back wall.  I did not sense a desire to legitimately scare anyone at any point.  

Perhaps the pig’s blood sequence is inherently unstageable, but a strong, imaginative and THEATRICAL attempt at a solution could raise the height of the entire evening.  

Some of the projection work was impressive (and quite useful and pointed elsewhere in the evening), but I don’t think Carrie ever rose above my ankles.