When Cowboy Angels Roamed The Wide World Wicked West-With The 75th Anniversary Of The Musical “Oklahoma!” In Mind-Okay
By Sam Lowell
Everybody has been fretting about the freight car full of 50th anniversary commemorations over the past couple of years starting with 2017s Summer of Love, 1967 (the obsessive devotion to honor which was the undoing of long time site manager here Allan Jackson but that is a tale already told) and now knee deep in the 2018 ones with the sad recent commemoration of Bobby, you know beloved Bobby Kennedy of the “seek a newer world” idea. Earlier in the year Si Lannon was beside in commemorating the 50th anniversary of the musical Hair and a couple of years ago Sandy Salmon went nuts over the 75th anniversary commemoration of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman’s Casablanca. So I am in good company in running an account of the 75th anniversary of the musical Oklahoma! Which is in revival at the famous summer stock Ogunquit Playhouse up in the Maine town of the same name.
Frankly I had no intention of going to the revival or of commenting on the production here in this space but I have had more onerous tasks under more trying conditions, so I am not complaining. See my long- time companion Laura Perkins wanted to go to Maine as is her wont to get some sunlight and fresh ocean air before the places get crowded with people from all over including those denizens of landlocked Quebec nation who seek the Maine shore as their own come July and August. As is well known by those who have even glanced at this space over the years I am crazy for the ocean so it was a no-brainer. As we prepared for the short trip Laura mentioned how much she has liked the production o of The Million Dollar Quartet about the minute at the Sun Records studio in Memphis Elvis, I hope I need not give a surname, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis blew out the rock and roll lights early in their careers and wondered aloud whether we might see something at the Playhouse while we were up there. I checked and it came out Oklahoma!, or rather the last preview of the production. I got the tickets and we were off.
Now Laura knows all kinds of good things about music, books, art, culture in general as she has displayed here over the past year or so since she has come back to write reviews that have suited her talents. What she knew nada, nothing, no way about was Broadway musicals and show tunes. Clueless from how they are produced and the norm of how their creators divide up the labor as here with Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers doing music and lyrics a thing they did many times to good effect on the Great White Way. So this production was something of a primer about how said musicals come together in the modern theater. Previously to this very musical most of them starred well-known singers who sang their hearts out behind a thinly veiled script, usually so hokey boy meets girl thing although that has been the staple of many creative ventures in books and film as well. Without getting bogged down in technical stuff this pair, Oscar and Richard if I may be so bold, decided to grab unknown singers and dancers and do an ensemble performance around what is frankly still a pretty thin plotline-yes that tried and true boy meets girl thing that has keep half of Western civilization on the edge of their seats form millennia plopping it down in the West as an add on.
Of course, in America, the America of the original conception you could not go wrong by heading out to the Wild West, well sort of wild west to do a tribute to the rugged individuals who went there-and survived. Went to the Oklahoma Territory early on before statehood cast its shadow on the land, on the Native American land if you think about it. Land from the trail of tears now with white value as the teeming Eastern cities filled up and some looked for that legendary pot of gold and streets paved that way too away from all of that grit and grime to breathe free at last. Still remember as everybody should and as a god friend of mine learned the hard way out in Standing Rock when they were trying to stop the goddam pipeline going through their sacred lands, remember it was Native American sacred land, their sacred lands. Some are juts now starting to do their invocations around that theme just so the unknowing get to know what is what. Kids of my generation, the vaunted Generation of ’68 which is beginning to tire and peter out, and maybe the generation before learned, the one the media have declared the greatest generation based on scant evidence beyond the Great Depression and World War II after which they fell asleep, a drugged sleep if you ask me, their idea of the West, the only good Indian is a dead one, good guys wear white hats and bad guys from Hollywood movies, the ubiquitous television and less so from book by guys like Zane Grey and his crowd.
That was not the real West as more recent Hollywood productions and books have underscored but the West of the 1940s understanding that city guys like Rodgers and Hammerstein has in mind. The real deal though beside touting the virtues of the West is the inevitable romance between the two main characters handsome singing cowboy angel to make Tex Ritter blush angel Curly and his dead aim at Laurie who for much of the production does not give him the time of day despite her love for the big goof. Along the way though there is a dark spot in the person of the crazy maniac Jud who also has a hankering for Laurie, a murderous hankering. This Jud represents the uncivilized part of the West but for purposes of the musical also is the center of a dream sequence which I thought was rather amazing for what had started outlooking like a light look at the West draped around the romance. Of course there was the usual amount of singing especially the title tune and Oh What a Beautiful Morning as the newly wedded part after fighting off the dark spirits of Jud in their very own surrey with the fringe on top.
P.S. I note that one Laura Perkins. She of the nada, nothing, no way has ordered Camelot, An American in Paris, and a couple of Miss Judy Garland musicals, the latter after I tipped her to the fate of one of our old corner boys Timmy Riley who eventually came out of the closet in San Francisco and is running the most popular tourist attraction drag queen show in that town with him occasionally headlining with his take on Miss Judy Garland which had made him the toast of the town.
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