The Haunted Carousel

Perhaps there are dimensions in time, mysterious and unexplored, where the past moves into the present and back again, revolving like the spinning of a carousel. This is the theme of Ruth Angell Purkey's drama, which centers on the polar bear of a carousel where a woman left her little boy in the 1890s. He disappeared and she has spent her entire life looking for him. The scene shifts to the early 1920s, with the carousel music indicating the time. A young, intellectual couple discusses the man's obsession with the haunted memory of the merry-go-round polar bear. The music of the carousel indicates a change to the 1950s as a young hippie couple argue. Why is he, too, haunted by the polar bear and the loss of his mother? Suddenly the carousel music changes to a futuristic dissonance—the music of "tomorrow." A sophisticated, young couple are on their way to a space scientists' ball when they stop off at the merry-go-round. They puzzle over his obsession with the memory of a polar bear, and another tragedy from the past. At the end we hear the eerie voice of the original mother of the 1890s calling for her lost son. An exciting contest play and experimental theatre work.