All that, and he sings, too...
Still groovin' on my tOOby love for Hugh Jackman...guess I just need to get it out of my system. We watched the filmed version of Oklahoma! last night, and I do NOT know how I, the musical theater buff, ever missed this. It really is the best staging of the show I have ever seen, and it puts the 1950s film (which I have always kinda hated) quite to shame.
British attempts at an Okie accent notwithstanding, it was a gritty, realistic take on the play that really captures the American frontier. You can almost see the dust kicking up under their feet. It is a filming of the stage performance, and viewers are taken on a you-are-there journey into the theater and through the box office, then put in our assigned seat by an usher. We wait with the audience during the seating, looking around at the theater and people-watching, then we experience the excited hush when the house lights go down and the overture plays. Brilliant!
Hugh--OMG, man, you will be my undoing! Off the charts for charm, and the unexpected treat of that big, sell-it-to-the-cheap-seats Broadway voice. He is macho and intense, bringing a surprising complexity to a character I always thought was 2-dimensional. What was really unexpected was the wonderful chemistry between he and Maureen Lipman, who plays Aunt Eller. She means it most fervently when she says, "If you weren't so young, and me so old, I'd marry you!" The affection between them drives the plot, as Eller works to break down the barriers between Curly and Laurey, and as Curly ultimately sacrifices the life he knows and everything he owns in order to protect and provide for the two women he loves. There is a lovely, fragile scene between Eller and Laurey that unexpectedly moved me to tears. Bravo!
Josephina Gabrielle's Laurey has been taken out of 2-dimensional status as well, though there's less one can do with such a typically ingenue role. In this version, her reticence toward Curly makes better sense (actually, it made NO sense before) as instead of being a petulant brat, she is portrayed as a hard-working tomboy who secretly longs to be a feminine beauty. Of course, Curly loves her as she is, not caring that she's schlepping around in overalls while the other girls are batting their eyes and flicking their petticoats. (She gets a lovely little Cinderella moment later.) Her farm means something to her, and though she is in love with cowboy Curly, she knows he is not what she and Aunt Eller need on a practical level, and she knows she can't ask him to change, so she spurns his advances. This adds another layer to her dangerous dalliance with hired man Judd. This new dynamic adds tremendous tension and weight to the auction scene--there is much more at risk for everyone, especially Curly, and their romance has a LOT more emotional resonance.
The crucial element that brings everyone else's performance up a notch is Shuler Hensley's portrayal of Judd Fry. Holy crap, it was a bravura performance! He's truly terrifying, but also pitiable, damaged and dark--like Roscuro in The Tale of Despereaux. Your heart breaks for Judd, but he's beyond redemption. Hensley deserved his Tony Award a hundred times over. The smokehouse scene between Judd and Curly--rowr. The dream scene--*shiver*. I'm not going to say more, just watch it, people, OMG!
The only downside was my disappointment in the Ado Annie triangle. I really can't find any fault with Jimmy Johnston's enthusiastic portrayal of Will, other than his total lack of chemistry with Ado Annie. I blame the director for this one. Ado Annie is not, I repeat NOT a bubble-headed slut. Put the poor woman's enormous tits back in her dress, and get it right! Maybe it's because I've played her several times and love her too much to be objective, but her treatment in this outing makes me see red. Ado Annie is NOT stupid, she's naive. She is NOT a slut, she's an incurable flirt. She is sweet and impetuous, that's why she's popular with the boys--not because she runs around looking like she can double for use as a floatation device in the event of a water landing and puts out like a $2 whore. The comedy comes from how she misunderstands Ali's intentions. She loves the way he makes her feel, but in reality she doesn't know a darn thing about men. In this go-round, however, she's just too stupid to live. Ali Hakim isn't right, either. He's not THAT oily--Ado Annie wouldn't be attracted to him, otherwise. He's charming and opportunistic, definitely self-interested, but NOT quite THAT smarmy. There's a teeny-tiny bit of chivalry in Ali, even if HE won't admit it. Given the lovely, subtle, realistic characterizations in the rest of the show, I'm surprised these characters have been painted so sloppily. Yes, the Ado Annie/Will Parker/Ali Hakim triangle is all about sex, but it's meant to be playful and innocent, not sordid. Leave sordid to Judd. Annie and Gertie's cat fight looks more like a serious barroom brawl than a comically clumsy fit of jealousy. Sorry, but they missed the mark entirely and lost the funny. Vicki Simon (who knows very little about comedic timing) throws away just about every line, and Annie's got a lot of really good ones. What a shame. To top it all off, her voice (both speaking and singing) annoys the hell outta me.
The wedding scene, OMG!!! I won't give anything away other than to say that it's hard to remember you're watching a stage play. Crazy awesome!
If you love musical theater, or want an introduction to a really good version of it, watch this one. Wonderful staging, awesome choreography, a cast that can sing the daylights out of classic Rogers and Hammerstein, and fresh, masterful performances. We need more of this kind of stuff out there.
British attempts at an Okie accent notwithstanding, it was a gritty, realistic take on the play that really captures the American frontier. You can almost see the dust kicking up under their feet. It is a filming of the stage performance, and viewers are taken on a you-are-there journey into the theater and through the box office, then put in our assigned seat by an usher. We wait with the audience during the seating, looking around at the theater and people-watching, then we experience the excited hush when the house lights go down and the overture plays. Brilliant!
Hugh--OMG, man, you will be my undoing! Off the charts for charm, and the unexpected treat of that big, sell-it-to-the-cheap-seats Broadway voice. He is macho and intense, bringing a surprising complexity to a character I always thought was 2-dimensional. What was really unexpected was the wonderful chemistry between he and Maureen Lipman, who plays Aunt Eller. She means it most fervently when she says, "If you weren't so young, and me so old, I'd marry you!" The affection between them drives the plot, as Eller works to break down the barriers between Curly and Laurey, and as Curly ultimately sacrifices the life he knows and everything he owns in order to protect and provide for the two women he loves. There is a lovely, fragile scene between Eller and Laurey that unexpectedly moved me to tears. Bravo!
Josephina Gabrielle's Laurey has been taken out of 2-dimensional status as well, though there's less one can do with such a typically ingenue role. In this version, her reticence toward Curly makes better sense (actually, it made NO sense before) as instead of being a petulant brat, she is portrayed as a hard-working tomboy who secretly longs to be a feminine beauty. Of course, Curly loves her as she is, not caring that she's schlepping around in overalls while the other girls are batting their eyes and flicking their petticoats. (She gets a lovely little Cinderella moment later.) Her farm means something to her, and though she is in love with cowboy Curly, she knows he is not what she and Aunt Eller need on a practical level, and she knows she can't ask him to change, so she spurns his advances. This adds another layer to her dangerous dalliance with hired man Judd. This new dynamic adds tremendous tension and weight to the auction scene--there is much more at risk for everyone, especially Curly, and their romance has a LOT more emotional resonance.
The crucial element that brings everyone else's performance up a notch is Shuler Hensley's portrayal of Judd Fry. Holy crap, it was a bravura performance! He's truly terrifying, but also pitiable, damaged and dark--like Roscuro in The Tale of Despereaux. Your heart breaks for Judd, but he's beyond redemption. Hensley deserved his Tony Award a hundred times over. The smokehouse scene between Judd and Curly--rowr. The dream scene--*shiver*. I'm not going to say more, just watch it, people, OMG!
The only downside was my disappointment in the Ado Annie triangle. I really can't find any fault with Jimmy Johnston's enthusiastic portrayal of Will, other than his total lack of chemistry with Ado Annie. I blame the director for this one. Ado Annie is not, I repeat NOT a bubble-headed slut. Put the poor woman's enormous tits back in her dress, and get it right! Maybe it's because I've played her several times and love her too much to be objective, but her treatment in this outing makes me see red. Ado Annie is NOT stupid, she's naive. She is NOT a slut, she's an incurable flirt. She is sweet and impetuous, that's why she's popular with the boys--not because she runs around looking like she can double for use as a floatation device in the event of a water landing and puts out like a $2 whore. The comedy comes from how she misunderstands Ali's intentions. She loves the way he makes her feel, but in reality she doesn't know a darn thing about men. In this go-round, however, she's just too stupid to live. Ali Hakim isn't right, either. He's not THAT oily--Ado Annie wouldn't be attracted to him, otherwise. He's charming and opportunistic, definitely self-interested, but NOT quite THAT smarmy. There's a teeny-tiny bit of chivalry in Ali, even if HE won't admit it. Given the lovely, subtle, realistic characterizations in the rest of the show, I'm surprised these characters have been painted so sloppily. Yes, the Ado Annie/Will Parker/Ali Hakim triangle is all about sex, but it's meant to be playful and innocent, not sordid. Leave sordid to Judd. Annie and Gertie's cat fight looks more like a serious barroom brawl than a comically clumsy fit of jealousy. Sorry, but they missed the mark entirely and lost the funny. Vicki Simon (who knows very little about comedic timing) throws away just about every line, and Annie's got a lot of really good ones. What a shame. To top it all off, her voice (both speaking and singing) annoys the hell outta me.
The wedding scene, OMG!!! I won't give anything away other than to say that it's hard to remember you're watching a stage play. Crazy awesome!
If you love musical theater, or want an introduction to a really good version of it, watch this one. Wonderful staging, awesome choreography, a cast that can sing the daylights out of classic Rogers and Hammerstein, and fresh, masterful performances. We need more of this kind of stuff out there.