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.
