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| Sorry it's taken me several days to reply, garyd | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 09:54 pm EDT 06/25/19 | |
| In reply to: re: My opinion—- Spoilers! Beware - garyd 01:42 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
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| I wrote a reply to you a few days ago, but I wanted to re-read all the Jeeter stuff in the play before posting it. And now that I have, I have revised what I almost posted a few days ago. I don't find the Jeeter of the play to be more sympathetic than Jud. If anything, I think he’s less sympathetic than Jud. He’s really a scary creep. He’s troubled, but he seems even scarier and more dangerous than Jud. Even more than in the musical, it seems like he would rape Laurey and then possibly kill her if given the chance. I've always found Jud in the musical a partly sympathetic character, but he is also a dangerous sociopath. I think the trick is to make him understandable, almost certainly the victim of some kind of severe child abuse, and not just scary and creepy, and yet to make him also scary and creepy and someone you'd never want to know and whom you would probably reject if you did know him. If we can trust what Hammerstein wrote about the song in his Notes on Lyrics, Riggs approved the song because “It will scare hell out of the audience.” So that doesn’t necessarily suggest that he viewed Jeter very sympathetically. I realize, of course, that both can be possible, and I would think that both Riggs and Hammerstein wanted us to feel some degree of sympathy for him but not too much. And, really, I think any sympathy we feel for Jeeter in the play comes only in his final lines after Laurey fires him. I think a useful comparison might be made between "Lonely Room" and the Judge's "Johanna," but I'll leave that for another day. |
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| re: Sorry it's taken me several days to reply, garyd | |
| Posted by: garyd 08:10 pm EDT 06/26/19 | |
| In reply to: Sorry it's taken me several days to reply, garyd - AlanScott 09:54 pm EDT 06/25/19 | |
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| No problem. Always good hearing from you . I think your thoughts concerning Jeeter are valid. He is creepier than Jud and Fish's Jud is a whole lot creepier than R&H Jud. The Fish Jud could definitely be capable of rape and murder. This comes not just from the interpretation of the actor but mainly from the manner in which Fish directs two important scenes involving Jud and Curly and then Jud and Laurey. And, as in most top notch productions of OKLAHOMA!, the majority of audience sympathy for Jud comes from the actor/director interpretation of "Lonely Room". This is the case, in my view, of the Fish production as well. And the Fish final scene certainly invokes sympathy along with a very large dose of shock bordering a bit too close to a true WTF moment. Upon reflection, I think my view of Jeeter as sympathetic comes not so much from a close reading of the play as it does from perhaps projecting more than appropriate on several interviews I have read with Riggs. A contrast/compare discussion of "Lonely Room" and the Judge's "Johanna" would be a lot of fun. |
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| re: Sorry it's taken me several days to reply, garyd | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 04:20 am EDT 06/27/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Sorry it's taken me several days to reply, garyd - garyd 08:10 pm EDT 06/26/19 | |
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| I'm glad you were able to follow my post. When I re-read it, I realized it really needed at least one more go-through before I posted it. | |
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