My Dad's Got Some Costumes In The Barn...
It's hard for many to believe, but 'Oklahoma' was a revolution in Musical Theater - in 1943. In that period, Rodgers and Hammerstein broke through the barriers of the cliché musical format to create something "serious" ('Show Boat' notwithstanding). Now, of course, 'Oklahoma' is the cliché for most and anything not featuring dirges, death and flying machinery will simply not cut it.
More Teeth is a little split on this subject, giving Ado Annie and crew their due for kicking off the Golden Age of Musicals, but also cringing a little every time another community theater or high school chooses to produce this relic yet again. It puts butts in seats, sure. It features room for endless chorus members, yes. It's got some standards that everyone can hum along with, absolutely. So, it's a safe choice for producers...right up there with 'Sound of Music' and 'My Fair Lady' and their brethren. But will we have to sit through an endless Dream Ballet or suffer two hours of hamfisted cartoon cowpokes? Or will Pawtucket pay homage to the classic with style and grace?
November 3, 2010
OK
As Will Parker sings to Ado Annie, it's "All 'er Nuthin." And that sums up the only approach that can make 'Oklahoma!' go from tired to terrific. Anything less than full commitment on the part of Producers, Director, Cast and Crew will result in hokum. The Community Players have made that commitment, and, under the helm of Tim Reid, have produced an entertaining evening's worth of classic musical theater. More Teeth's feelings for the play aside, this is what you go to the theater for. The dancing is sharp, the voices are full and the design elements are all there in spades.
What helps, in no small way, is the cast that Reid has assembled. Gabrielle Whitney's Laurey has a lot of show to carry and she manages to without stumbling on being overly cutesy or alternately diffident. Her struggles against admitting affection for the cowboy (Matt Webster's Curly) and admitting fear of the morbidly lascivious farmhand (Bill Whitehead Jr.'s Jud Fry) ring true and her clear Soprano sounds youthful, but confident. Webster, too, has a magnificent tone and looks perfect, but often slips into a wooden immobility that stands out in this cast of wonderfully expressive performers. Whitehead Jr. is subtly commanding and never steers his Jud Fry into caricature.
The true joy, though, lies in the laughter and this is where this production shines. Timothy Crepeau's Will Parker is an elastic-limbed wonder, and his opening number, "Kansas City," is what finally kicks the show into high gear after the perfunctory first few numbers. Erika Pastel's Ado Annie grabs the baton and delivers the same precision wackiness she's come to be known for in Pawtucket. John Gomes' Ali Hakim comes closest to stealing the show, however, with his audacious accent (and even more audacious jacket). The sheer joy of seeing a Persian merchant con his way through a town full of backwoods Red Staters has a contemporary relish that could only have been intentional in 1943 and plays even funnier in 2010. Lee Rush's Aunt Eller is a charming mix of bawdy and prudent and Christine Lariviere's Gertie owns a laugh that becomes a character of its own.
All of this is helped by a rich design palette that manages to stay sepia-toned without appearing flat. Brian Mulvey's design is crisp, simple and evocative. Jud's smokehouse bedroom, a clever manipulation of hinged flats, oozes grimy menace and lends an appropriate ambience for the darker tinged Scene Two (showcasing Dan Fisher's light design) where Webster manages his finest moments and Whitehead has his star turn with "Lonely Room." The color comes out in the rich blues of the sky and the hoop-skirted, denim-clad festival of costumes that Pamela Jackson has assembled.
None of this changes More Teeth's opinion on 'Oklahoma!' as a show, however. The Dream Ballet sequence still feels overlong and an excuse to force a plot contrivance so Laurey can pass out in a narcotic haze and hallucinate superfluous dance numbers. This ensemble is mostly up to the task and Reid's choreography showcases a facile usage of all of the elements he has to work with. But the sequence is either the best part of 'Oklahoma!' or the worst, and there's not much else that could have been done with it save a little less smoke (which we enjoyed, because who doesn't love a good fog machine? But there were more than a few programs flapping and a couple of runners to the lobby). Does it serve to illustrate Laurey's inner conflict? Sure it does, but so does Whitney's clearly defined subtext as her character vacillates inwardly and has an almost Hamlet-like lack of decision that, when it finally comes, leads to death. (Did we just compare 'Oklahoma!' to 'Hamlet'? Well, sure...and we'll even compare Laurey's casual putdowns of Curly to the "merry war" of Benedick and Beatrice). Either Whitney made those choices for Laurey or Reid's direction pulled it out of her. And, if the latter is true, then why would he allow the actual felling of Jud be so anticlimactic? The title number is a rousing chorus that lifts the show up on a tide of spirit that feels like the show is finished, but then we have the untidy business of Jud and a kangaroo court to deal with that comes across as hurried and sloppy. Perhaps subsequent performances will remedy this disappointing finale, but Jud Fry is too good a villain to waste with such an unceremonious end.
The ultimate conclusion would be that, yes, The Players deliver a mostly brilliant 'Oklahoma!' which we enjoyed. Immensely. As long as this show is, it didn't even seem so, which is the mark of any good performance. But we're still no convert to the joys of the script and there were no overnight conversions that had us singing "Many a New Day" all the way home. But, there is nothing like the experience of a talented cast breathing life into an old warhorse like 'Oklahoma!' And that's OK by us.
The Community Players of Pawtucket present Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Oklahoma!' Nov. 5-21 at Jenks Auditorium, Division Street, Pawtucket, RI (across from McCoy Stadium). Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets are $18 for adults and $15 for students (through high school). To reserve seats, call (401) 726-6860 or visit their website at www.thecommunityplayers.org
