The carnival

Last night we went to see the Kennedy Center's own production of Carnival!, a 1961 musical directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom with music and lyrics by Bob Merrill ("How Much Is That Doggie in the Window") and script by Micheal Stewart (Bye Bye Birdie; Hello, Dolly! 42nd Street). It is based on the 1953 movie Lili and the original 1950 story from The Saturday Evening Post called "The Man Who Hated People" by Paul Gallico. While is is not a commonly familiar musical, it does have one popular and well-known song, "Love Makes the World Go Round."

Carnival! tells the tale of a young orphaned girl who falls in love with the carnival and develops a complex relationship in the life of a puppeteer and his puppets.

While Lili is a much-loved movie musical from the 50s, I did not find the stage musical Carnival! to be as successful. The script is weak. What's more, musically, some of the most important and most emotional songs just didn't go anywhere. The Kennedy Center reworked things a little bit to combine the original two acts into one, long, two-hour act. Because all the angst and love duets traditionally happen towards the end of a musical, that made it a little challenging to maintain interest at the end.

Where the musical does succeed is in on-stage spectacle. There are several production numbers that dazzle, with fine choreography, sparkling costumes, spectacular props, magic tricks, and all kinds of acrobats, aerialists, and actual circus-type performers. Kudos to the technical and stage crew for designing and executing extraordinarily difficult "big top" shows that suddenly materialize and disappear during the course of the show. Even the Eiffel Tower arises from the stage's center trap!

Some of the performers stood out as well. Johnathan Lee Iverson was larger than life—and extraordinarily tall!—in his role as carnival owner and ringmaster Schlagel. Natascia Diaz was great in her small belter role as Rosalie, the on-stage assistant and off-stage unappreciated love interest of the carnival's star magician. Rosalie has a great line: "I sang an M above high L when I was Carmen in Aida." Four tall, slender dancers were the "roustabouts" who moved set pieces, provided a foil for the magician, and engaged in a lot of athletic choreography.

After the show, we met the magician, Marco the Magnificent, played by Sebastian La Cause, as he came out the stage door, and we got his autograph. He gave us a fine on-stage portrayal of the aging, egomaniacal, over-sexed carnival star, showing great dance training, but, perhaps, not so great singing training. He lost his accent during his song and didn't support his voice well (necessary even with the heavy miking they used). There may have been a little type casting here: La Cause has his own Web site that gives not only his daily workout training routine but a huge gallery of photos of him in varying degrees of (un)dress and an entire section he calls a "beefcake gallery" for him in more muscular, athletic poses.

The two stars of the show are Lili, the young orphaned girl, played by Ereni Sevasti, and Paul, the carnival puppeteer, played by Jim Stanek. Both had their strengths and their good moments, but on the whole, their chemistry together was lacking and both, both individually and as a couple, were miscast.

The diminutive Miss Sevasti began the show the model of young innocence, though I wasn't so sure if she was playing a teen-aged girl or perhaps one a bit older who was a bit slow and/or certainly greatly naïve. She had an old-fashioned, tight vibrato singing style that was wonderfully "period" for this piece, and she had a solid, clear, high top. Towards the end of the show, though, when she and Paul have their "crisis" and falling out, her anger and attitude gave the impression more of a strong, somewhat older woman, rather than a wounded and angry girl. I also never really felt any emotional connection from her towards the other principal characters.

Stanek was even more miscast. His character is a former star dancer whose leg was injured in "the war," leaving him unable to dance; he is bitter about his disability and angry to those around him. Unfortunately, I felt that instead of angst and anger, his characterization was mostly petulant. And, interestingly enough, the original "Paul" on Broadway was the late Jerry Orbach, the gruff-voiced detective on the Law and Order television series. Some of the worst musical writing and songs fell to Paul's character, and much of those songs was centered in the lower vocal mid-range, with a definite baritone tessitura. The problem is that Stanek is a lyrical tenor, and he very simply did not have the lower notes, thus he couldn't do anything with the bad music and difficult songs. I don't blame him; I blame the casting director.

I don't mean to cast a pall over this entertaining musical. It was a pleasant enough evening. I found it interesting, though, to read the reviews in The Washington Post and Variety, both of which greeted Carnival! with glowing reviews and high praise. Did we see different musicals?

Carnival! runs through March 11 at the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater.