Soliloquy
Carousel was a weird show for me. It allowed me to show some dramatic range and really concentrate on what my voice does in song, but the theme was difficult to grasp properly and the audience’s tended to walk away a little bewildered, so not a lot of praise was heaped on the actors.
But playing Billy Bigelow was a genuine acting challenge. Sure, he has bravado and swagger and that’s easy enough for me. But he also isn’t a villain. In the end, the audience needs to believe in his redemption, despite his mistakes and lack of repentance.
For me, Billy would have turned it around, given time, but his foolish get-rich-quick mugging led to his death and he did not have the time to grow that he would have needed. I tried to bring that across, and what little change occurs in him definitely is encompassed by the Soliloquy, an eight-minute, range-threatening powerhouse of a solo.
This article talks about how Frank Sinatra learned and loved probably the best song in the show.
