THE BASICS: OKLAHOMA!, the North American Tour of Daniel Fish’s revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, part of the Shea’s Broadway Series, runs through February 20, Tuesday – Friday at 7:30, Saturday at 2 and 8, Sunday at 1 and 6:30 at Shea’s Buffalo Theatre, 646 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14202. Proof of Vaccination and Masks required. This production of OKLAHOMA! is not recommended for children under 12. It does contain fog, loud gunshot effects, moments of total darkness, blood spatter, and violence. Runtime: 2 hours, 45 minutes including one intermission
THUMBNAIL SKETCH: Set in the “Indian and Oklahoma Territories” the year before Oklahoma became a state in 1907, this is the story of a farm girl, Laurey Williams, and her courtship by two rivals, the overconfident cowboy/rancher Curly McLain and Laurey’s brooding, lonely, disturbed farmhand, Jud Fry. This will not end well. The secondary romance/love triangle and comic relief has cowboy/rodeo rider Will Parker (who’s probably landed on his head a few times) smitten with Ado Annie, a girl who “can’t say no” especially when it comes to traveling peddler Ali Hakim.
THE PLAYERS, THE PLAY, AND THE PRODUCTION: The 1943 musical OKLAHOMA!, the first collaboration by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, was groundbreaking as a “book musical,” meaning that the dialog, songs, and dances were fully in service of the plot, and were not a series of numbers connected by a flimsy story. That’s one reason it won the Pulitzer Prize, along with only nine other musical dramas to ever gain that recognition. There are antecedents, however. Before OKLAHOMA! Richard Rodgers had collaborated with lyricist Lorenz Hart on PAL JOEY, a rather dark story of a small-time con man. And Oscar Hammerstein II had provided the book and lyrics to Jerome Kern’s SHOW BOAT, which dealt openly with the problem of racism. In opera, this style of realism is known as verismo. I don’t know if Broadway musicals have an equivalent term.
So, Rodgers and Hammerstein were no strangers to breaking new ground in musical theater nor to tackling darker issues on stage. And, regardless of how sentimental you may be about the production of OKLAHOMA! you or your friends put on in high school, darker issues were always there, but were probably glossed over. That’s not the case here. Not at all. This is not a “feel good” musical.
Bullying, suicide, gun violence, ‘stand your ground,’ are some of the 21st century’s hot topics brought out in this 2019 production.
Bullying, suicide, gun violence, “stand your ground,” are some of the 21st century’s hot topics brought out in this 2019 production.
Bullying: Back in the day, Curly’s encouraging Jud to hang himself just seemed like a couple of guys joshing with each other, the way guys call each other names. Not here. Curly comes off like a taunting bully exploiting the loneliness of a guy he’d just as soon be rid of. He’s not kidding and neither is Jud.
Suicide: Projecting a hand-held video camera’s image of Jud’s face on the back of the stage lets us know that this is not innocent locker room banter. This is much closer to hazing.
Gun violence: The set is a bit unusual, with plain walls on either side, decorated with gun racks, some racks holding six rifles and shotguns, some four, adding up to, counting both sides, 116 weapons on display. And that’s not counting handguns. Following playwright Chekhov’s dictum (loosely translated) that if the audience sees a gun in Act I, it damn well better go off in Act II, it does. Although it’s not exactly clear that it’s the same handgun. Earlier in the musical, Curly had sold his pistol for cash so that he could outbid Jud for Laurey’s picnic basket. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a picnic basket is just a picnic basket but here it obviously isn’t. Later on, at the wedding of Curly and Laurey, Jud shows up with a wedding gift, a pistol (Curly’s original?), which he has now loaded, then cocked, then put in Curly’s hand.
Stand your ground: Then Jud seems to defy Curly to stand his ground. In the original staging, there was a knife, there was a scuffle, Jud ended up stabbed, and it was unclear exactly how that happened. It’s possible that Jud fell on his own knife. So when Aunt Eller, interested in getting the newly married couple of Curly and Laurey off on their honeymoon, originally pushed a hastily convened trial forward, there was some audience acceptance.
In the new staging, there’s little doubt what happened. And when Federal Marshall Cord Elam objects to this sham trial, he is shouted down. After the vigilante murders of Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others murdered by men who claimed they were simply following the practice of “stand your ground,” it’s just not possible to watch that scene the same way.
Daniel Fish’s reimagining of OKLAHOMA! was originally staged for a theater-in-the-round and it won the 2019 Tony Award Winner for Best Revival of a Musical. But that’s not exactly what you’ll see in Buffalo. Unfortunately, the original theater in the round concept doesn’t translate well to this North American Tour on the enormous Shea’s Buffalo stage.
Theater in the round usually provides a more intimate, intense audience experience and also requires blocking that keeps the actors constantly moving, so that no one character has his or her back to any part of the audience for long. At Shea’s, all of the players (including the band) are splayed out across the stage and for the most part are in constant view. They have been given movements that are not inappropriate for their characters, but they do often seem to do things for no apparent reason, other than moving around the stage. But why?
The music is pretty much what you’d remember, but played by an on-stage country band, complete with banjo, mandolin, steel guitar, fiddle, and such.
The music is pretty much what you’d remember, but played by an on-stage country band, complete with banjo, mandolin, steel guitar, fiddle, and such. And, similar to some stadium-sung versions of The Star Spangled Banner, there are some vocal flourishes that you might find a bit odd. There is a fair amount of humor, mostly provided by the love triangle, well, actually pentagon of Ado Annie, her cowboy suitor, her shotgun wielding dad, her short-term suitor the peddler, and a character named Gertie.
One aspect of the original 1943 production, which may have advanced its Pulitzer Prize prospects, was the inclusion of an interpretive dance called the “Dream Ballet” at the beginning of Act II, originally choreographed by the great Agnes De Mille. Intended to show the inner turmoil of Laurey, the electric guitar wah-wah effect at Shea’s was intensely loud and obnoxious as was the lowering of a bank of orange flood lights in our face. If the intent was to make the audience as uncomfortable as Laurey, it worked. Some say that the dream ballet was the result of Laurey inhaling some sort of “truth drug” that the peddler sold her. The dancer Gabrielle Hamilton, was great, but everything else about the dream was off-putting.
The reaction on social media has been, for the most part, negative. The comments overheard exiting the theater were either puzzled or negative. However, one good thing. Usually you overhear banal comments about what people are doing later that evening. Here, 100% of the conversations overheard were about the musical. When’s the last time that happened? Maybe after HAMILTON.
Playbills are handed out at the theater, but you can get an advance look here.
Personally, I think that you should go see this revival. It was an important musical in 1943 and deserves a second look. Your discomfort may come from looking at it through the lens of what we’ve experienced over the first 20 years of the new century.
However, so that you don’t go in unprepared, I’m rating it at somewhere between two and three Buffalos.
Lead image: Photo credit Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
*HERD OF BUFFALO (Notes on the Rating System)
ONE BUFFALO: This means trouble. A dreadful play, a highly flawed production, or both. Unless there is some really compelling reason for you to attend (i.e. you are the parent of someone who is in it), give this show a wide berth.
TWO BUFFALOS: Passable, but no great shakes. Either the production is pretty far off base, or the play itself is problematic. Unless you are the sort of person who’s happy just going to the theater, you might look around for something else.
THREE BUFFALOS: I still have my issues, but this is a pretty darn good night at the theater. If you don’t go in with huge expectations, you will probably be pleased.
FOUR BUFFALOS: Both the production and the play are of high caliber. If the genre/content are up your alley, I would make a real effort to attend.
FIVE BUFFALOS: Truly superb–a rare rating. Comedies that leave you weak with laughter, dramas that really touch the heart. Provided that this is the kind of show you like, you’d be a fool to miss it!