Theater Review: An Oklahoma! that Explores the Dark Side

Oklahoma!

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics and Book by Arthur Hammerstein II

Arrangements by Daniel Kluger

Directed by Daniel Fish

Starring Damon Daunno, Rebecca Naomi Jones, and Patrick Vaill

Circle in the Square Theater, Manhattan

September 4, 2019

This innovative production of the musical theater classic Oklahoma! won the Tony Award in 2018. I agree with all the plaudits, based on the recent performance I saw on Broadway in the intimate Circle in the Square Theater (perhaps 300 seats total). There was a notable and successful rethinking of the show both musically and dramatically. The most obvious change to the original is the replacement of the lush Richard Rodgers orchestrations with a small country/bluegrass band (keyboards, cello, bass, violin, electric guitar, banjo, and percussion). Since I am a big fan of the plush sound of the original, I worried about how I would respond. I really enjoyed it, once my ear adjusted. While not all of the show’s numbers are “country” in spirit (e.g. the classic waltz “Out of My Dreams” or the opening “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’”), many do have “country” spirit (e.g. “All Er Nothin”, “The Surry with the Fringe on Top”, “The Farmer and the Cowman”). Here, the brilliant downsized orchestrations by Daniel Kluger made even the most “non-country” songs work as part of a holistic downhome country evening. This was achieved by both the instrumentations and by the vocal stylings of the cast, especially the Curly of Damon Daunno. Right from the start, he embellished “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’” with yodels and a dead-on regional accent that squarely placed us in Oklahoma, rather than on a Broadway stage simulating a fantasy Oklahoma. 

The men strutted about with swaggering saddle-induced bow legs, and the style and accents of the women reminded me of the Oklahoma persona of Meryl Streep in the film version of August, Osage County, another  famous work set in this intriguing, ur-American state. Only the Laurie of Rebeca Naomi Jones failed to fully capture the country essence of the director’s vision. Her voice was nice, but she neither stood out enough to make her “different” nor really blended in with the country jamboree.

Theatrically, this production emphasized The Dark Side of Oklahoma!. The state has a disturbing history of white expropriation of native American land (the famous land rush) and of racial animus (the infamous 1921 Tulsa race riots that killed hundreds of blacks and essentially evicted them from the city). This dark side is built into the play by Hammerstein using the character Judd Fry. He is a sociopath who formerly burned down a house and killed a family after being jilted by a girl. In this play, he always seems on the way to doing the same in the local town, as his beloved Laurie falls for the heroic Curley instead of him. Here, Judd is played by a grim-looking Patrick Vaill, genuinely creepy throughout.

Throughout, Judd is played as a true scary sociopath, and his aura dominates the cheery country-western pageant. For example, there is a recurring use of a male fantasy toy held up to the eye to show “girlie pictures” but containing a spring-loaded knife that will slit the throat of the unsuspecting user. Judd repeatedly tries to get the unsuspecting Curley to use this device, but fails The scene in which Curley accosts Judd in his dark smokehouse lodgings, often unconvincing on stage, is here played in complete darkness, as we imagine the described hanging meat and lurid porn lining the walls. Evoking director Ivo van Hove, the director here uses a handheld camera to penetrates the darkness, showing an up-close of the two men on a projected rear screen. This excellently showed a mixture of mutual hatred and, daringly, some homosexual lust (oh, those lonely cowboys).

The show’s problematic ending was improved by this dark take. The traditional show ends a bit unconvincingly; the rousing number “Oklahoma!” that feels like a traditional climax does not actually end the show. Instead, Curley then shoots the malevolent Judd as he threatens Laurie, and a trumped up courtroom blithely finds Curley innocent (despite the concerns of the local lawman), and all sail away happily to a reprise of “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’”. What?? In this production, the fake courtroom scene is played even more as a sham, and the show now ends with a reprise of “Oklahoma!”. But here it is striking sung ironically. There is no dancing, and faces are grim, as if the cast realizes how much their lauded “brand new state” is a morally corrupt creation. So, finally, at last, we get the right rousing ending song, but now with a level of 2019 cynicism. I have previously seen Oklahoma!’s dark thread as a weakness of the show, as it seemed that the authors were reluctant to go all in, tacking on a manufactured happy ending despite all the moral ambivalence they inserted earlier. Here, director Daniel Fish went all in on the darkness. I think this honors the complexity and moral ambiguity of the original better than any version I have seen. Perhaps this interpretation did not work 100%, but it was a courageous and stimulating way to end the show.

The production was set in the round, with audience on three sides of the stage. The setting looked like a church social, with tables set with crockpots and the band set in full view, and some of the crockpots were used to serve hot food at intermission. There were no attempts to change visual settings, so no real scene changes, except for the striking blackout used for the scene with Judd and Curley. This simplicity worked really well and fit with the down-home vision of the production. There was not much dancing by the cast except for great work by a strutting James Davis in “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City”. The famous Agnes de Mille ballet dream sequence, the first fullscale ballet included in a stage show, in which Laurie imagines all her sexual nightmares and fantasies accompanied by balletic cowboys, was replaced by a solo dance by a shaved-head, hip hop single black woman wearing a “Dream On” long T shirt. This virtuosic performance by Gabrielle Hamilton fully encompassed Laurie’s conflicted emotions in a modern dance context, and even honored de Mille’s original by using the horse-galloping motifs that were characteristic of the famed original ballet. A cast standout was the rowdy Ado Annie (“I Cain’t Say No”) by the wheelchair performer Ali Stroker. She was dynamic, sexy, and funny, and somehow participated in the dances with a style better than the non-wheelchair actors.

Overall this was a dynamic, innovative production that musically exceeded my expectations and made a convincing case for a darker, more disturbing Oklahoma!. See it if it tours in your region.