Reimagined âOklahoma!â Hints America Is Not O.K.
Director Daniel Fishâs radically reimagined production of Rodgers and Hammersteinâs Oklahoma! was originally workshopped in 2015; after a Tony-winning Broadway run, a national tour officially opened last night in Minneapolis, where itâs playing through Sunday. 2015 feels like a billion years ago, but that eon has only increased the resonance and relevance of a show that dramatizes the deadly consequences of aggrieved, entitled masculinity in a nation full of firearms.
While Thursdayâs crowd at the Orpheum Theatre rose to cheers â and, in some cases, to their feet â for boisterous numbers like the exuberant actor Sisâs lusty rendition of âI Cainât Say No,â the audience was also clearly challenged by the productionâs deliberately disorienting zigs and zags. (The crowdâs demographics were predictable for a touring Broadway classic: in their masks, half the men could have passed for Governor Tim Walz.)
With a quick-step flow that disrupts expectations for stagy applause invitations, the production alternately presents itself as a modestly refreshed revival, a campy singalong, and a subversive reinvention. The final scene lands firmly on the latter note, with a rendition of âOklahomaâ bleaker than one might have imagined at the opening of Act II, let alone before stepping into the theater.
Itâs a pointed challenge to the many culturally complacent productions that have come before, but it also has the effect of shaking the dust off one of the most influential works of American art ever created, reclaiming Oklahoma! as a product of the modernist era. The dream ballet, for example, becomes a showcase for solo dancer Gabrielle Hamilton, who dramatizes the pained undercurrents of a community where men just cainât stop fighting over women.
The showâs top note is a spicy one, apparent from the outset as Curly (Sean Grandillo) turns his silly song about a surrey into a slow-burning seduction thatâll singe your chaps. Before that, though, he unfurls the iconic âOh, What a Beautiful Mornin'â with blithe, unhurried polish as the rest of the cast lounges dispassionately at tables laden with cans of cheap beer. It may be a beautiful morninâ for the cock of the walk, the show implies, but a sense of menacing malaise is also afoot.
The productionâs most fascinating aspect is the nimbleness with which Fish flips the script â which, in a literal sense, remains unaltered from the original text. Not every classic musical could take this kind of stress test; a recent revival of Paint Your Wagon, for example, tossed the original book entirely to recast the songs in a more palatable context. In the case of Oklahoma!, though, the script by Oscar Hammerstein II shines all the more when cast in a new light. Fish and his diverse cast surface an itchy, randy energy thatâs refreshingly sex-positive. Ado Annie cainât say noâŠnor does she need or want to.
This interpretation even finds a current of lust between farm girl Laurey (Sasha Hutchings) and hired hand Jud, played by Christopher Bannow as a stringy-haired, unshaven, eerily calm outsider whoâs visibly ready to ensure that any and all of the âintentionally staggeringâ number of guns that appear onstage in the first act go off in the second. Heâs not the only one bringing a gun to town, though, and the showâs most challenging choice is to implicate happy hero Curly as complicit in the communityâs culture of toxic bravado.
That all makes the show sound like a heavy slab of message, but in fact it may well be the most entertaining Oklahoma! youâll ever see. The cast fill Laura Jellinekâs brightly wood-paneled, banner-festooned set with effusive energy thatâs all the more involving for being cast in an ironic light. The showâs music is performed by an onstage Americana ensemble, giving the timeless songs a gratifyingly period-specific flavor while cautiously guarding against the encroachment of nostalgia.
Not everything works, and thatâs fine. When it comes to a technique involving a blackout and closely-miked dialogue, a little bit would have gone a long way; instead, we get a lot. On Thursday the cast seemed to be still finding the showâs rhythm â and, perhaps, adapting to the strange energy of a nervously vaxxed live audience. If they didnât nail every beat, though, the beats were there. The difference in this production is that, for perhaps the first time in the long history of this well-worn musical, we can also hear the off-beats.
Photo by Matt Murphy for MurphyMade, courtesy Hennepin Theatre Trust.
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