A Night of Music--With an Edge

The Scene: Wednesday’s opening night for the Royal National Theatre’s revival of “Carousel” at the Ahmanson Theatre with an alfresco after-party buffet on the Music Center plaza. Though the 1945 classic is a musical, it’s by no means sugar-coated. One critic called it “the dark side of Rogers and Hammerstein.” As one guest said: “It’s my favorite musical comedy about spousal abuse.”

Who Was There: A better turnout than most recent film premieres have gotten. Maybe the world is wearying of delinquent extra-terrestrials. Among the 1,600 first-nighters were Nick Nolte, Tracey Ullman, Kathy Bates, Lloyd Bridges, Diane Ladd, Debbie Allen, Karen Black, Bruce Davison, Shirley Jones, Ann Magnuson, Brenda Vaccaro, Charles Nelson Reilly, Bill Kobin and executive producer Aldo Scrofani with Freda Payne.

The Buzz: They must have loved it. Half the audience was bawling by the time the curtain fell. “People come to this expecting ‘Oklahoma’ and what they get is Flannery O’Connor,” said one woman.

Dress Mode: In Los Angeles, nobody’s sure what to wear to the theater. The fashion ranks on the formality spectrum somewhere between a Las Vegas wedding and a Lakers playoff game. It’s the whole range from prom queen to blue jean; from early Pee Wee Herman to late Elton John.

Quoted: “This is from the period when Rogers and Hammerstein would take the dramatic form and musicalize it,” said Ahmanson artistic director Gordon Davidson. “This is a great, dramatic story, a story about misstepping and redemption. And the message is that it’s possible to do.”

Provenance: Fifty-one years ago, John Raitt was the first production’s $400-a-week leading man. He said a number of changes occurred before opening night: “Originally we had a Mr. and Mrs. God scene in the parlor. Dick and Oscar didn’t think it was working. One night Dick said ‘Oscar, we gotta get God out of the parlor. Put him somewhere else.’ And they did and it worked.”

Overheard: “I just want to know if the chandelier comes down in this one.”