PLAYGOER

"Carousel," the Theater Guild's latest attempt to copy former success "Oklahoma," specializes in top notch Agnes DeMille dance routines, overflows with passable Richard Rodgers music, and totters on the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein 2nd and the plot from Ferenc Molnar's "Liliom."

Hammerstein, who rose to lyrical heights in "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" has fallen in "Carousel." With no first rate songs whatsoever, he presents numbers titled like "This Was a Real Nice Clambake," "When I Marry Mr. Snow," "Geraniums in the Winder" that turn one's esthetic stomach.

Everywhere the long arm of "Oklahoma" reaches in and dictates the style. One of Rodgers' best songs, "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" sounds a good deal like "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" and several others like "You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan" and "What's the Use of Wondrin'?" though nowhere nearly so tuneful as their predecessors have a definite touch of "Oklahoma" about them.

Agnes DeMille has, however, put on a spectacular array of terpsichorean wizardry ranging from a classical rendition of a hornpipe to an example of modern dancing which is beyond doubt one of the best seen this season. Again the "Oklahoma" touch appears in Anabelle Lyon, who is a copy of Joan McCracken.

Murvyn Vye, "Oklahoma" alumnus, playing the villainous Jigger Craigin, stands alone from a cast of over 50 as the one realistic and well done character. From insults, "If thar's one thing uh can't stand . . . it's a common woman," to passionate lovemaking, "I'd swim through a sea o' beer for you . . . wit' me mout closed," Vye turns in the outstanding job of the entire performance.

Before intermission, "Carousel" is a mediocre folk opera; after intermission it leaves all bounds of reason. The hero, Billy Bigelow, having committed suicide, is led off by two unidentified gentlemen in tweed suits. In spite of his protests he is taken around the front door of heaven and sent in the back way under the "mother of pearly" gates where he meets heaven's janitor dusting off stars. By now reduced to nothing more than a slushy dramatization of the maxim to live your own life regardless of what your parents were or did, "Carousel" concludes with Billy returning to earth for a day to cheer up his family.

As a third rate operetta, "Carousel" is bad enough, but as a mystic fantasy with songs it is absurd and over-sentimental.