Way back in 1941, Richard Rodgers parted with his writing partner Lorenz Hart (The Boys from Syracuse, Pal Joey) and Oscar Hammerstein from his frequent collaborator Jerome Kern (Show Boat, Desert Song). The two joined forces to adapt a musical version of Lynn Riggs’ Green Grow the Lilacs, a piece Hammerstein had particularly been passionate about, and musical theatre history changed forever. Until then, musicals had been primarily frothy, bubbly showcases for bouncy tunes with clever lyrics bound together in a nonsense plot to barely string the numbers together (think Cole Porter’s Anything Goes or any of George Gershwin’s prohibition era confections—amazing music, pointless stories). Starting with Hammerstein’s lyrics and setting them to the music they inspired, Oklahoma! is credited with being the grandfather of the modern book musical, where story and song, and eventually dance, are all interrelated into one coherent musical experience. Fluff shows were now a thing of the past.
Cut to 2019, almost 80 years later, when musical theatre had evolved into contemporary pieces full of social commentary and prepackaged scores of pop music. Bob Fosse had come and gone. Rent was 20 years old and showing its creaky age. And the Golden Age Rodger’s & Hammerstein musicals were now a thing of the past. Enter director David Fish, who conceived a revolutionary revisionist revival of the musical which took New York by storm and won Tonys for Best Musical Revival and Best Featured Actress (Ali Stoker as Ado Annie, the first actor to win a Tony in a wheelchair). The difference between Fish’s masterpiece and every other revisionist revival before or since is that he performed no rewrites. No dodging “problematic issues” but facing them head on. The only thing about the original script he revised was our lens through which to observe the show. Only somewhat facetiously billed as “not your grandmother’s Oklahoma!”, without altering one word of the book or one lyric of the score, he unveiled a completely different musical interpretation with a completely different hero and villain. Throwing out all the corn-fed hokeyness of the characters and their corny, posturing ways of delivering the haughty, country-fried dialogue, he approached it with a more honest interpretation, going for the emotion not the cheap laughs, but producing infinitely more humor—and terror—in the process. So pack up Grandma’s Oklahoma!. Toss everything you expect, Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae, Dream Laurey and Dream Curly, Agnes de Mille’s visually stunning choreography, and lush strings in the orchestrations. Pack it all up and send it off to Kansas City. The only changes in the show are new more contemporary country arrangements to the classic score by Daniel Kluger and the change of the weapon that brings the story to its climax from a knife to a revolver, a political commentary on our contemporary gun culture reflected in the set design by a wall full of gun racks. And the elimination of singing and dancing choruses. Now the leads and supporting characters perform as each other’ ensemble when needed
This is the production now playing at the Eisenhower Theatre at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, also masterfully directed by Fish, and it is brilliant. He has a game cast able to interpret his vision, dare I say even more talented and engaging than the original New York cast. Sean Grandillo (Deaf West’s Spring Awakening) makes an impressive Curly. Possessing the looks of a young Zac Effron and the vocal appeal of a young Keith Urban, from the moment he enters, guitar in hand, and croons a stunning new opening arrangement of “O What a Beautiful Morning” to start the evening, you know you’re in for a brand new show. He also blends effortlessly with Sasha Hutchings (original New York Oklahoma!, Hamilton) as interested but hard to get love interest Laurey in Kluger’s new countrified arrangements that sound as clear and natural as Vince Gill and Tricia Yearwood. The role of Laurey in most hands always comes across as hateful to flat-out bitchy. Hutchings and Fish avoid all those trappings with a more guarded, self-protective attitude.
Veteran actress Barbara Walsh (Falsettos, Blood Brothers, Big), who got her start decades ago as a regular at the prestigious Harlequin Dinner Theatre in Rockville, is a strong presence as Laurey’s Aunt Eller, equally protective of Laurey as she is an advocate for Curly. Walsh masters a comic deliver that at times is reminiscent of Jane Lynch at her best, never a bad choice.
As the secondary love interests, Ado Annie and Will Parker, Fish casts a broad net of alternative casting and lands new comic gold in a pair entirely different than his Broadway choices. The actress and activist merely billed as Sis (Pose, The Last O.G.), the driving force behind last year’s Trans March on Broadway, brings a hilarious new freshness to the role, with an even healthier dose of lust than usual. And in Fish’s praise, she is directed nothing like her Tony winning counterpart Stoker. Fish embraces her physicality and unique comic abilities and allows her to be the newest and funniest Ado Annie she can be. Especially in coupling her with diminutive Hennessy Winkler in his Broadway/national tour debut for some of the funniest yet sweetest love scenes on the current touring circuit. The differences in their physical statures alone sets the stage for humor, but this perfectly cast pair elicit all the laughs with strong talented performances. And I can wager not one Ado Annie in history has ever ended her lusty anthem, “I Cain’t Say No” with a full-on rousing Patti LaBelle finale. The casting of Sis and Winkler is also historic in that it might well be the first time two trans actors were ever cast opposite each other on a major Broadway or national touring production, and the audience benefits from the creative choice.
Benj Mirman as the hilarious hypotenuse in Annie and Will’s relationship triangle, Persian peddler Ali Hakim (she took up with him while Parker went to Kansas City to earn her father’s required dowery of $50), milks the role for all it’s comic worth at the expense of Parker’s dimwittedness. He also avoids all the former trapping of being weighed down in the antiquified racist elements of the role. He’s merely a Midwestern peddler of middle Eastern descent, which one would never know if the unaltered script didn’t make such an extended bit over his “Persian goodbyes”.
But the performance of the evening and the new focus of the show is Christopher Bannow (The Elephant Man, Oklahoma!) as misfit Jud Fry. Traditionally portrayed as a dark, intimidating hulk with a penchant for pornography and lust, Bannow and Fish have created a softer, gentler, more fragile Jud. Barrow’s Jud is not the villain of the piece. He is actually the victim of bullying from all the townsfolk as a misunderstood outsider. Mostly by Curly, who is by far not the hero of this new show. Jealous of the attention Laurey is giving him (toxic masculinity at its worst), Curly preys on Jud’s tenuous nature. He begins by suggesting the only way anyone would ever know his full value was if he’d commit suicide, continues by antagonizing him to humiliate him at the lunchbox social auction, and culminates with shooting him in cold blood only to be let off by a kangaroo court conducted by a cold and calculating Aunt Eller. Without changing a word. Bannow is heartbreaking as we watch him enjoy himself for the only time of the show dancing with Laurey, being given the most basic attention, knowing how the evening plays out by the show’s climax.
This review would be remiss to not mention the biggest salute to the original that also is the biggest departure—the dream ballet. When Laurey drinks a potion sold to her by Hakim to “give clarity and visions”. But gone is Agnes de Mille’s stylized set-piece ballet with Dream Laurey and Dream Curley dancing out her passions and frustrations and fears. This reimagined dream ballet is a single soloist (Jordan Wynn at this performance) dressed in a sequin T-shirt stating “Dream Baby Dream”. Her nearly 15 minute modern dance adventure, the biggest imprint made by choreographer John Heginbotham. leaves much more to the interpretation of the audience about Laurey’s discovery of her sensuality through a series of gallops, boot-scooting, and night vision camera work.
Laura Jellinek’s most basic set design, neutral wood picnic tables across a neutral wood backdrop and mylar streamers, provide the feel of a barn dance. Functional also, there’s cornbread mixings to be assembled, corn to be shucked, and crockpots along the walls, a salute to the chili and cornbread they served the audience at intermission in New York. (There is no chili on this tour.)
On the remainder of the tech front, Scott Zielinski’s lighting design feature many harsh washes at critical points in the story, and some deliberate stretches of long blackouts featuring night vision camera projections. All very moody and influencing the audience’s perspective, but most effective for the entirety of “Poor Jud is Daid” as he focuses on Barrow’s lonely visage on the 30 foot back wall for all to clearly see.. Terese Wadden’s costume design is a contemporary take on a piece still rooted in turn of the century statehood. Bright colored embroidered western shirts, form-fitting jeans, and frilly square-dancing dresses accent her attractive plot. And Drew Levy’s sound design takes advantage of the Kennedy Center’s flawless acoustics, beautifully capturing the smooth vocals of Kluger’s exceptional new arrangements.
But the brightest star of the production is Director Fish’s brilliant reconception of this landmark classic. Purists have been very vocal about the composers “spinning in theier graves” over the “liberties” taken with their material. But Fish changed nothing. He honored every word. Removing the bloom from this American Beauty rose and calling out the small-town popular folks who harassed a lonely outcast to the point of tragic destruction resonates in a society where we can openly bully and traumatize our less fortunate in the broad daylight of the internet by holding up an uncomfortable mirror. Full disclosure, this critic has long held traditional Oklahoma! (the show formerly known as “4 Hours About Who This Bitch Is Taking to the Dance?”) in disdain for its shallow one dimensional characters and dated music (I always considered it Rodgers & Hammerstein’s starter show). But Fish and company have created from the same identical pages a complex character study so riveting and so relevant in our harsh, hate-filled world that it is the most intriguing and absorbing revival I’ve ever seen. Again, without changing a word. My theory is maybe this is the show Rodgers & Hammerstein had intended from the start, but knew they needed to tone down for a WWII audience who expected entertainment and escape from their musical theatre. They surely never shied away from controversial social themes (Nazi infiltration in The Sound of Music, domestic abuse in Carousel). Who cares what your grandmother’s feelings are about Oklahoma! are? Rush to the Kennedy Center to see this beautiful and engrossing 1-week only engagement of this unique revival because you will never have the chance to see it again.
All press photos by Matt Murphy-Murphy Made
Running Time: 2 hours 45 minutes with one intermission
Oklahoma! plays through April 10, 2022, in the Eisenhower Theatre at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F Street NW, Washington, DC. For tickets call the box office at (202) 467-4600 or purchase them online.