| re: “Oklahoma!”: Audience Rejection On the Road. | |
| Posted by: jo 09:27 pm EDT 04/06/23 | |
| In reply to: re: “Oklahoma!”: Audience Rejection On the Road. - theatreguy40 05:15 pm EDT 04/06/23 | |
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| You've probably captured the sentiment of audiences which did not agree with the revisal by Daniel Fish. OKLAHOMA! is not just America's landmark musical but it has also become a cultural treasure of America, not just for the glorious music and original staging from Rodgers & Hammerstein ( based on Lynn Riggs play "Green Grow The Lilacs") but because it touched a certain slice of history & culture in the settling of the West. I was lucky to have seen the RNT Oklahoma! in London after it had transferred from the South Bank. I was in London on a business trip and when I learned that there was a revival of one of my favorite composers' famous musicals, I got tickets for the show. I did not even know who the cast was - I was just thankful to see a live staging of the film version which I saw in the past. To be honest, it was my least favorite of their 5 famous musicals ( most of which I saw only in film adaptations) because it was not well-acted by some members of the cast . The RNT Oklahoma had explored some dark nuances not obvious in the original show/film adaptation, without necessarily changing the artistic intention of the famous composers. The characters showed some of these dark nuances which Nunn said he had gleaned from the R&H musical play. Thankfully it was filmed on a sound stage ( scenes from a staging were spliced in) at the initiative of Trevor Nunn...and the home video included a long Behind-the-scenes feature, which added appreciation of the Nunn revival. Take the time to watch that Special Feature and appreciate more of how a classic can be revived with new nuances but still being essentially true to the original artistic intentions. If Mr. Fish wanted to project a different look at the culture and mores then, he should have written his OWN musical theatre composition and not appropriate a well-loved classic to project his artistic intentions. There is room for modern or avant garde thinking, even about what happened in the past, but this was not the right way to do it, as far as I am concerned. |
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| Previous: | re: “Oklahoma!”: Audience Rejection On the Road. - theatreguy40 05:15 pm EDT 04/06/23 |
| Next: | re: “Oklahoma!”: Audience Rejection On the Road. - AlanScott 10:24 pm EDT 04/06/23 |
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