REVIEW: Oklahoma! Oklahoma!
It was cool in New York on March 13th back in 1943. Over at the St. James Theater, a musical from the new writing team of Rogers and Hammerstein called Oklahoma! was opening. Right off the head, a laconic cowboy named Curly saunters to the front of the stage, plants his feet and sings, “There’s a bright golden haze on the meadder …”
It changed the shape of musical theatre forever.
Until then, musicals were mostly an escape from the real world with lots of singing and dancing – held together by the skimpiest of plots. Oklahoma! was different. With the possible exception of Show Boat 16 years before, it was the first “book musical” where all the songs and dances were fully integrated into a well-told story. Its goals were mainly dramatic and designed to generate real emotions. Like opera, the music of Oklahoma! featured repeating motifs and – good gosh – a full 15 minute classical ballet.
It was a huge hit, ran for years, won a Pulitzer Prize and has been produced over and over again – most recently in a small, folksy, country-music style that serves chili and corn bread to the audience. It is still running on Broadway.
The latest to take on this corn-fed piece of Americana are the Festival Players of Sherwood Park at Festival Place until Dec. 30. For 17 years the company has presented a Christmas musical and has proven itself to be among the area’s best amateur companies. Their Singing in the Rain was the equal of anything on a local stage last year – professional or otherwise.
In Oklahoma!, director Martin Gelba may not set any new standards for the evergreen classic but avoids the danger of the feeling that you are watching a museum piece. The result is a spry and energetic version presented by a carefully chosen cast of local performers who keep “the corn as high as an elephant’s eye.”
The lightweight story revolves around Laurey (Maren Richardson), a pretty young girl sought after by two men – the cowpoke Curly (Joel Sims) and the sinister Jud (Colin Stewart). Curly goofs up his chance to accompany Laurey to the “box social” in which local boys bid on picnic hampers prepared by the ladies. The headstrong Laurey goes with Jud – sending the morose loser the wrong message. Curly, in a desperate effort to bid for Laurey’s vittles, sells everything he has to secure the box. He wins the draw, romances the willing Laurey and the two prepare to marry. The spurned Jud turns up with a knife on the wedding day, and sets up a lethal encounter with the cowboy.
A somewhat lighter love story also develops around the carefree cowboy Will Parker (David Son), Ado Annie (Kathleen Sera) and the itinerant peddler Ali Hakim (Shawn Wells) who is attracted to Annie’s earthy sexuality – but not with the idea of marriage.
Of course, it is Rogers and Hammerstein’s superb music that propels the evening. The show is a gusher of 14 familiar songs all of which sound as glorious as they ever did: Many a New Day, The Surrey With The Fringe on Top, People Will Say We’re in Love, and more.
Richardson is blessed with a splendid soprano voice and delivers a forceful no-nonsense stage presence. Sims is a likeable actor (and an even better dancer). He has the disconcerting habit of sneaking up on his high notes from below but when he hits them, he is clear and strong. The lead characters, stuck in an adolescent relationship, sing If I Loved You in a believably mature manner. Wells is an appealing and slyly amorous rogue, injecting a comic element and keeping the production from taking itself too seriously. Good voice, too.
Son is a loose-limbed buckeroo with a cocky attitude. The actor, with a long career in Edmonton dance, is called upon for some lively dance numbers. Stewart’s Jud is a formidable player and the actor goes beyond the page to show us how the character is really the product of a deplorable environment. His rendition of his solo Lonely Room is a stand-out. Curly is rather unkind in his power over him as underlined in the dirge, Pore Jud is Daid. In these “woke times” you have to work a bit to ignore that the cowboy is trying to persuade Jud to commit suicide. Fringe favourite Francie Goodwin-Davies, with her galumphing moves and Minnie Pearl voice, engagingly makes the gun-toting matriarch Aunt Eller a force to be reckoned with.
Sera, who just might be the best thing on stage with her brassy comic performance, is a continuing hoot as the flighty but endearing Ado Annie (the gal who Cain’t Say No), whose search for love may have taken her to local haylofts just a little too often.
It’s a big show with a cast of 30 and 15 in the pit band.
Choreographer Shelly Tookey’s contribution to the evening can’t be over-expressed. Her large company of dancers are well-trained and the big production numbers, Kansas City and The Farmer and the Cowman, are exciting to watch. Taking her cue from Agnes DeMille’s original dream ballet, and the familiar steps of her later work Rodeo, the moves are effectively used throughout. Rather than employ the original “avatar” dancers, who filled in for the leads in the dream ballet, Tookey uses Richardson and Sims to dance throughout. And along with her company and with modifications, it works darn well. The ballet is fully integrated into the production providing key insights into Laurey’s fears of the menacing Jud, while celebrating the lively frontier spirit of the territory in the last days before Statehood.
Photos by Rob Swyrd
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