Setting Carousel
For Rodgers and Hammerstein, the most difficult aspect of transforming Liliom—a European classic—into an American musical was finding an appropriate setting. After nine months of deliberation, they decided to move the setting from turn-of-the-century Budapest to late nineteenth-century Maine in order to best capture the wistfulness and melancholy of Molnár’s original play for an American audience. An understanding of the everyday struggles of life on the Maine coast lends the world of Carousel a complex and subtle richness.
Maine had its economic foundations in the fishing industry, a grueling and often dangerous enterprise. The intensive labor and perilous conditions fishermen endure are often glossed over in favor of a romantic portrayal of coastal living and sailing the high seas in many productions of Carousel. The Maine landscape is marked by the miles of rivers that powered its many textile mills. The women of Carousel, if not occupied by duties as a fisherwife, often took work in textile factories for wages averaging $2.25 a week and meager room and board. Mill girls were considered to be among the lowest caste of workers and were forced to endure long hours in factories clouded with dust and the constant buzzing noise of dangerous equipment. In fact, mill girls like Julie Jordan who would “gaze absent-minded at the roof,” risked losing limbs, hair, and even their scalps to such crude machinery. Factory owners such as Carousel’s Mr. Bascombe oversaw their employees like stern fathers since mill girls were often without family, imposing dress codes, curfews, and other strict rules.
Even characters like Mr. Bascombe, who escape the misery of hard labor, still must endure the harsh Maine landscape. The relatively mild weather of June is a respite between the bitter cold of winter and the heat of August. In Carousel, the joy this relief elicits can be expressed only through song and movement, when repressed emotions and desires come “bustin’ out all over.”
–Stephen Raskauskas
