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| re: Within the context of this particular current production | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 03:56 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
| In reply to: Within the context of this particular current production - aleck 10:00 am EDT 08/28/19 | |
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| "There have been many reconsiderations in this production of the text as it has been performed since its original production. However, I don't think that in most cases of these reconsiderations that they are invalid. I think, for example, that the way the final 'trial' scene is staged and spoken that ALL of the characters know that what they are doing is wrong." But this is not a good example of your thesis, because while the text of the trial scene remains the same in the current production, both the staging AND the text of the scene of Jud's death -- which is what Curley's on trial for -- has been changed. I think the huge change in the staging has been covered enough that I don't need to detail it again, but the textual changes involve the addition of one line -- right before the murder, Jud hands Curly a gun and says, "You know what you have to do" -- and the cutting of another line or two --in the scene as originally written by Hammerstein, when Jud is killed in the struggle, Curly and or someone else says something like "He fell on his own knife, stuck clean through the ribs." So it may be true that, in the trial scene in THIS production, all of the characters know what they are doing is wrong, but it arguably wouldn't be "wrong" if the staging were the original and Jud fell on his own knife during his struggle with Curly, rather than Curly shooting an unarmed man at point-blank range. "I had never seen Lonely Room performed with such intensity. He made a buffoonish character into a truly living, breathing person." I'm guessing you saw neither Martin Vidnovic nor Shuler Hensley as Jud in the last two Broadway revivals of the show, because I certainly thought both of them made Jud a living, breathing person rather than a buffoon, and I believe most if not all of the critics felt as I did. |
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| re: Within the context of this particular current production | |
| Posted by: mikem 05:05 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Within the context of this particular current production - Michael_Portantiere 03:56 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
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| I did not realize that the "you know what you have to do" line is an addition. IMO, that line completely changes the context of the shooting, making it seem like Jud has some complicity in his death. The line makes it seem almost like a mercy killing. | |
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| re: Within the context of this particular current production | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 05:30 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Within the context of this particular current production - mikem 05:05 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
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| "I did not realize that the 'you know what you have to do' line is an addition." Probably because the production keeps insisting that there are NO textual changes to the show, which is not true. Also, yes, that line completely changes the context of the shooting -- but further than that, the shooting is not a shooting in the original script, it's a knifing. And it's not even a knifing of one person by another. What happens, again, is that Jud falls on his own knife during a fight with Curly in which Jud is the only one of the two with a knife. |
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| re: Within the context of this particular current production | |
| Posted by: mikem 11:09 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Within the context of this particular current production - Michael_Portantiere 05:30 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
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| Has Daniel Fish ever said anything about why it's a gun and not a knife? I guess he couldn't have the blood shooting onto Curly and Laurey if it were a knife. And the displayed rifles on the walls of the theater are echoed by the use of a gun. I agree it's odd that they keep saying that there are no textual changes when one of the most important segments of the show is changed in a meaningful way. |
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| What Fish told Deadline.com about the shooting in 'Oklahoma!' (spoiler) | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 04:53 pm EDT 08/29/19 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 04:51 pm EDT 08/29/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Within the context of this particular current production - mikem 11:09 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
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| Fish: When we did it at Bard in 2015, Ted [Chapin] felt it seemed a little bit too much like cold-blooded murder, and that was not how I intended it to be, and it’s not what I thought it was. I thought it was more a kind of almost-suicide in which everybody is made complicit. So we worked very hard at St. Ann’s to make a few adjustments to make it clear that Jud had agency in that action. Ultimately he’s not the person who pulls the trigger. In this version, Jud hands him the gun. Jud cocks the gun. Those two gestures were not there in 2015. Jud brought the gun, but he didn’t hand it to him, and he didn’t cock it, and it didn’t take quite as long. | |
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| re: Within the context of this particular current production | |
| Posted by: Billhaven 05:03 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Within the context of this particular current production - Michael_Portantiere 03:56 pm EDT 08/28/19 | |
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| Neither Rod Steiger as Jud in the movie version nor Howard Da Silva in the original version could be described as buffoons. | |
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