THEATER: This Carousel Doesn't Go Anywhere

For nearly two years a half-century ago, the original version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel played across the street from their original Oklahoma! To most devotees of musical theater, that era seems like heaven. It is obligatory among the ardent to deride today's Broadway blockbusters as vastly inferior to the hits of yesteryear and to cry out, If only they made 'em like they used to. To me, the Broadway opening last week of a revival of Carousel prompts the thought: Thank God they don't. I'd far rather see Miss Saigon for a fifth time, or Les Miserables for a ninth...