By DAVID RICHARDS

Charmed Circle -- No 15 minutes were more magical than the prologue of "Carousel," during which the British designer Bob Crowley set a turntable spinning on the stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theater and with each spin progressively transformed a drab New England mill into a garish traveling carnival alive with penny attractions.

Riveting Medea -- In the spring revival of "Medea," Diana Rigg chose to emphasize the fierce intellect of the title character who slaughters her children in order to drive her faithless husband mad. Once the forbidden deeds were done, the metal walls of Medea's palace fell to the ground with a crash, leaving her profiled against the racing clouds. It was the year's most stunning coup de theatre. And Ms. Rigg took home a Tony. Larger Than Life -- Irony of ironies, playing a forgotten movie star, Glenn Close became a bigger star than ever in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard," which came to Broadway from Los Angeles in the fall. As Norma Desmond, she looks like a demon in a Kabuki play and doesn't sing her songs so much as cast a spell over them. Her rendition of "As if We Never Said Goodbye," the show's best number, is transfixing.

McNally's Heroes -- You laugh and weep all through "Love! Valour! Compassion!," Terrence McNally's humane play, at the Manhattan Theater Club, about three weekends in the country. But the final minutes, when his characters, gay men in the age of AIDS, look ahead and recount how they will die, tear your heart out.

Phoning It In -- "Call me," sang the scantily clad chorus girls encased in Plexiglas cubes. The middle-aged men in bathrobes seated on top of the cubes did just that. In "The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public," a musical that aimed low, a production number illustrating the delights of phone sex was easily the lowest point. On Broadway in May, it was gone in May.

Copyright 1994 The New York Times Company