Oklahoma! @ Bass Performance Hall
—Wayne Lee Gay
In 1943, Rodgers and Hammerstein reinvented the Broadway musical with Oklahoma! An immediate escapist hit in a Depression-battered, war-focused country, the work provided an optimistic and nostalgic depiction of rural America, decorated by music that quickly became an integral part of our national cultural heritage.
In 2019, director Daniel Fish re-imagined the beloved musical--and, without changing a word or a song, created, for Broadway, a challenging view of American life that disturbs as much as it entertains. The touring version of Fish's production, part of Performing Arts Fort Worth’s “Broadway at the Bass” series, opened Tuesday night at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth.
Fish's concept borders on genius, and it must surely have emerged at that level in the acclaimed production at Circle in the Square Theatre, an 840-seat theater-in-the-round facility in Manhattan. As revamped for larger touring venues (such as 2000-seat Bass Performance Hall), it asks a little more of the audience--which, ironically, out in touring-show country, may be less open to the though-provoking rethinking of this piece of Americana.
The characters and situations in Oklahoma! are as old as theatrical comedy itself: the lovers who initially resist each other's attractions, the comical secondary couple, the lurking, hissable villain. In 1943, Oscar Hammerstein II put varying levels of edginess on all of them; Fish turns that up to high volume.
As played traditionally, Laurey is a sweet young lady with a feisty streak; in Fish's version, Sasha Hutchings, in skin-tight jeans, is a seething Laurey with an occasional shift to girlish aspiration. Curly (Sean Grandillo, who also played the role on Broadway) acts the traditional love-struck cowboy but goes all-out ego, grabbing a mic and guitar like a country-western divo at every opportunity.
Along with these heightened versions of Laurey and Curly, Jud (played with disarming, spooky calm by Christopher Bannow) becomes a tragic hero. How aware was Hammerstein (an American of Jewish ancestry) that he had created in Jud a blameless, marginalized victim of a smug majoritarian community? (One might even speculate that the name "Jud," originally Jeeter in the source material, had ethnic connotation for Hammerstein as a shortened version of "Judah.")
Director Fish certainly recognizes the injustice of Jud's dilemma, and he explores it spectacularly, turning the confrontation between Curly and Jud into a pivotal moment with a simple but spectacular blackout. In the outcome, in which Jud shows up in a two-piece business suit with white shirt and tie, we in the audience are forced to face what we knew all along, even in traditional productions: the obvious hero of the piece, Curly, is a suicide inciter, in this version willing to participate in a finale straight out of Greek tragedy.
Nor are we allowed to dismiss the relationship of Laurey and Jud as simply an unrequited crush on the part of Jud: we see even in traditional productions that Laurey is capable of intertwining love and hatred (as in her initial relationship with Curly); here in Fish's version, that possibility plays out with tragic results.
Ado Annie and Will Parker have always been hilarious and slightly disturbing; even in traditional productions, the viewer could hardly help sensing a needy sex addict in Annie, and her male counterpart in Will. Played here by Sis and Hennessy Winkler, the couple cut an unforgettable presence with Sis's voluptuousness physically overwhelming lean, compact Winkler. Benj Mirman as Ali Hakim, the skirt-chasing traveling peddler, and Barbara Walsh as tougher-than-nails Aunt Eller, play their roles more traditionally—though the latter's monologue on life, the finest moment in the script, gets rather lost in the closing shuffle. As in any production, Gerty (here, Hannah Solow) brings a screeching laugh, but here with a hint of deeper sexual undertone.
The setting is a rural town hall/picnic area. The cast wears contemporary country-style casual attire, and a palpable air of frustrated resignation. (The ambiguous racial mixture reflects the reality of present-day rural America; the viewer may choose to see it as color-blind casting of a traditionally all-white show, or a reflection of real life in 2022.) Dozens of rifles decorate the walls: this is not the America of the settled frontier and Jeffersonian democracy, but rather a simmering Trumpland, with copious alcohol consumption. (Lest any reader assume I am writing from a viewpoint of urban snobbiness, I am myself a child of rural and small-town Oklahoma, and I know whereof I speak.)
The onstage orchestra led by Andy Collopy—basically a country-western-style ensemble with enough voltage for a few quasi-hard-rock moments—puts a sharp strain on composer Richard Rogers' operetta-style lyricism. On one hand, it strips the score of much of its prettiness; on the other, it relieves the show of a prettiness that sometimes feels relentless. Singing was at best loudly assertive and at worst off-pitch; the dialogue is about 75 per cent comprehensible in Bass Performance Hall, with some of the best light-hearted comical lines thrown away.
The traditional ensemble dance numbers (among them "Kansas City" and "The Farmer and the Cowman") are trimmed down to sometimes awkward simplicity, once again appropriate to the reimagined setting. Laurey's laudanum-induced dream sequence, originally a stylish but dark modern dance ballet, here becomes an ecstatic hard rock explosion, danced by Jordan Wynn in one of the most successful moments in the production.
The fan of opulent, easily digested Broadway shows might well be disappointed by this Oklahoma! For the admirer of insightful drama and unexpected reinterpretation (who might otherwise overlook another Broadway revival touring show) this is a worthwhile ticket.
WHEN: Through June 26
WHERE: Bass Performance Hall
WEB: www.basshall.com
