What happens to Billy?

That's the question I was left with.
Rogers and Hammerstein wrote a dark musical about a tormented carnival barker and his tragic story of love and violence with a girl from the mill and the legacy they leave to the next generation. It's about cycles of violence and love, about the preexisting roles we are forced into by our parents and by society, and the possibility of escape from them. It's called Carousel.
And it is Northwestern's 66th Annual Dolphin Show, the largest student-produced musical in the United States. And our rendition of it leaves you with that question.

The story goes that Billy and Julie fall in love. They are more in love than either of them can admit, out of fear, and they never say the words to one another.
Billy beats her. He commits suicide when he doesn't know how to save her and their unborn child from the world they live in, from himself.
And when he gets to the backyard of Heaven, "Up There,", everyone there is female. He's forced into a place where he is finally subjugated by women, who he put down and beat "Down Here." The Starkeeper is the woman who ran his carousel, the literal carousel and the metaphysical one becoming one and the same, a carousel of life, the cosmos spinning around him out of his control. And the Heavenly Friends, the two women who lead him through his afterlife, are the town gossips from his previous life. They are the ones who lead everyone through the story of his life, and then they lead Billy through the rest of his story. They tell him that he hasn't done enough good in his life to get into heaven, not even through the back gate, but that he still has a chance to do something good for someone.
They take him back "Down Here," to Earth, for him to see his daughter, Louise, who is so much like him. He tries to make her life better, by giving her something, a star he has stolen from Up There, and when she refuses, in the struggle, he hits her too. He perpetuates the cycle of violence in which he trapped her mother.
And then he sees her mother. He sees Julie, fifteen years after he died and left her alone, and he sees what she has become. He sees her, and he sings, for the first time, how he loves her.
This expression is so powerful. You don't know if Julie can even hear him, but the fact that he says it is so strong for him, that he recognizes it and is unafraid to finally admit how he feels.
With the help of the Starkeeper, he convinces his daughter to live on, to escape from the legacy he has left her.
And the heavenly friends lead him offstage.

So what happens to Billy, after the Carousel turns?

Did he, in the end do enough, telling Julie that he loves her, helping Louise break free? Is that enough to get him into Heaven?

Or does he deserve to go to Hell? Do these small moments not make up for the fact that he beat his wife and then his daughter too?


I think neither of those are right for him. I think the expression of emotion, especially for Billy, is beautiful and incredible and moving. I think he has made such steps in understanding the trauma he has caused, and attempting to right it. But I also think these are not enough to save him from to the things he did in life, violence and suicide and the selfishness of leaving them alone to fight the world.
I don't think Billy gets into Heaven for this.
And I don't think Billy deserves to go to Hell.

I think maybe Billy becomes the next Heavenly Friend.

He couldn't affect real change in this one chance he had, but maybe he deserves another. And maybe he deserves to be able to affect another person like himself, to see their life and lead them to face change in it.
Because I have such a strong belief in second chances. And third. And fifteenth. And nine-hundred-seventy-second chances. I refuse to give up on him.

There is something so good in Billy. We know it.
He loves Julie. He says it. He loves Louise. He sees himself in her.
And he understands it now.
And that understanding has got to count for something.
It's not enough to get him through the back gate. But it is enough to save him from Hell.
It's enough just to give him one more chance.
To lead. To understand. To save others as he could not save himself.

That's what happens to Billy.

It's what happens to all of us.
May the Force be with you all. Amen.