| Oklahoma: The reaction of a 70-year-old who had no previous knowledge of the musical | |
| Posted by: aleck 04:28 pm EDT 08/30/19 | |
|
|
|
| (There are spoilers below.) No previous knowledge of Oklahoma at age 70? Can you believe it? I didn't. I took a long-time friend to see Oklahoma last night (my third visit). Beforehand, I tried to warn him of the changes in approach that he would face. Then, I find out that he had absolutely no previous encounter with the musical. He was unaware of the plot, the characters, the time of the setting and only vague awareness of SOME of the songs. He certainly had no knowledge of the context of the songs. I knew that he had little knowledge of the theatre in general. But Oklahoma? I just assumed . . . How could you live 70 years and avoid knowing something about it? Moreover, this is someone who was raised in an affluent, educated New York Jewish household. And little awareness of the theatre? I'm wondering now if he is just trying to pass as Jewish. Nevertheless, his reaction, a priori, to this production. Well, he was stunned. Basically, "Everything is so complex. I'd have to see it again. Men with the women. Men vs. men. Control over the land. The relationships of the group to the outsiders. All was double-edged, even the comedy." I explained that in THIS production everything is double-edged, but not in any other production of the musical I had seen in the past. When I told him, for example, that Poor Jud is Dead is normally played as a comic number he looked puzzled and said "How?" I guess this production is the standard upon which he would judge all other productions, just as others who are familiar with earlier productions, including the movie, color the expectations when coming into this production. He was sensitive to the "Persian" peddler as a stand-in for a stereo-typed Jewish character. He knew that Oscar Hammerstein was Jewish, but did not know that Richard Rodgers was as well. He asked: "Why were these Jews writing about country people in Oklahoma?" He was not aware that most creators of musicals of the Golden Age were Jewish (with the exception of Cole Porter) and that a similar question was asked of Gershwin when he wrote Porgy and Bess. While he didn't know the musical, he had a very full knowledge of the history of the state of Oklahoma, including the Native American part of the origin story of the state. After the performance, I suggested, as I did earlier on this board (and thanks for all the flaming), that the Native American dynamic was the one thing missing in this provocative production and that it could be addressed by casting a Native American in the role of Jud. Although he thought the text could support a justification for such casting, he was horrified by the thought; "That would make my head explode. It's already too complex. If a Native American Jud was shot dead at the end, the audience would scream and tear down the walls." (I guess we don't want that. It would be so time-consuming to clean up after every performance . . .) And about the condition of the production compared to what I saw in June. I liked seeing it for a third time and noticing more of the little details that are going on around the main action. For example, at the end when almost everyone is singing about "everything going my way" the actor playing the Marshall goes over to Laurie and they have an extended (unheard) serious discussion. After this discussion, Laurie never joins the group again and never is seen at Curley's side. Instead, she stands at the rear with a troubled look on her blood-spattered face while Curly's blood-splattered expression is one of aggressive triumph. There are many, many other little details like this that can be spotted throughout. Boy, was this material mined! I'm sorry to say that the performance since June has deteriorated a bit. I was disappointed to find that Curly has apparently added more "country" riffs into his vocals, making the "country" infusion sounding more like a pastiche instead of something more subtlety organic as it seemed a few months ago. But mostly I was disappointed that the clarity of the delivery of the dialog and lyrics that I found so fantastic two months ago has become somewhat sloppy. There was clearly an original effort to have the actors hit those final consonants of every word very hard. While we know this is artificial, it can be very helpful to audience understanding of the dialog and lyrics. Now, in a lot of critical areas, the young cast has slipped away from that consonant emphasis. For example, Ado Annie's great song line "What you goin' to do when he talks that way? Spit in his eye?" Then, a big laugh. Last night, however, the actress did not hit the "t" in spit and the line came out swallowed as "Spinhiseye?" No laugh. The audience simply didn't hear the line right. Another critical point in the second act, the peddler (an ineffective understudy) missed the line when calling after Will when Will was "Going to save your wife from getting killed." The peddler yells out to Will: "Mind your own business." Big laugh. But last night the actor didn't hit the "d" in mind or the final "s"in business so it was a slurred "Mine yr own busine" No laugh. Few people understood what was said. I found these faltering diction issues troubling throughout. in both song and dialog. Also, on first viewing I thought "Someone has finally got Mary Testa under control." Well, she's not under control any more. While all this was somewhat disappointing (but not catastrophic) the performance by the actor as Jud has deepened. It is now a quieter and more desperately painful expression. My 70-year-old friend found the part -- and the performance -- as overshadowing all else. (I don't know how this actor can muster up those flood of tears during his video close up in Poor Jud is Dead. As first, I thought this must be a prerecorded video that is projected. But, no, this was live. This actor must be drawing on something very deep and very dark to deliver this -- a well as the rest of his amazing performance.) I think it kind of puts the production out of balance as the other performances have not fully kept up. But, despite these issues, I can't wait to see it again. There is so much here to admire and to contemplate. |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | re: Does the NY Phil use dynamic pricing and any seating advice? - sirpupnyc 08:19 pm EDT 08/30/19 |
| Next: | re: Oklahoma: The reaction of a 70-year-old who had no previous knowledge of the musical - cmleidi 10:52 pm EDT 08/31/19 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.037575 seconds.