Buffalo, I have a problem with you and your relationship to theater.
When I graduated from college after studying musical theatre, one of the things I knew about the city was that it had a robust theatre community, and I loved it and many of the people in it, and also that I wasn't a match. Love you, love it, love theater, but we were never fully aligned.
I took myself to the big city where I could be a small fish in a gigantic pond of risky, edgy theatre that tried new things, invented techniques, pushed limits, and loved small productions as much as the grandiose ones. I wanted - still want - to perform on Broadway. But I love most the shows that challenge. And I've seen a lot of them. BRILLIANT, ugly, and disastrous.
But Buffalo wants its theatre a bit more straight-laced. Not as much risk taking, as fun or thought-provoking in a safe way. We are a working city, after all. Folks want beer, sports, and entertainment that can thrill but not really challenge.
I've been so proud to watch our theatre community push to spread past that - and I've seen and heard about works that try to push at the edges of theatre. They're not big hits, they're not talked about beyond the small bubbles of conversation, but I see smaller companies in Buffalo really trying. I admire that.
So when Oklahoma was announced - when it originally opened as a re-imagined piece - I was curious. I wondered about it, but ultimately I didn't really consider it in my top shows to go see. I was in it when I was a kid, and I watched it on TV many times - so I thought I knew the musical pretty well. Certainly, I knew the music and dancing and hoopla that I loved. I figured that with Jud and all the "I Cain't Say No" of it, there was some room for modern re-imaginings, but I didn't give it much heed.
Until Buffalo rejected it.
When I heard folks were walking out of the theatre, and read the posts absolutely hating what they were seeing, and knowing my city the way I do - with its propensity to reject things that are not familiar and comfortable - well, I had to go see it.
Buffalo, my dear beloved city, we have got to talk.
Let me offer my caveats. If you were expecting the original production, you were going to hate this one. If you don't know or are familiar with modern dance, you were going to despise the ballet section. If you are unfamiliar with, or don't appreciate, theatre in the round and how that sometimes doesn't perfectly translate to proscenium theatre, you probably weren't going to give the show the liberty it needed, or understand what made this huge show quiet and intimate.
Stripped down of most of the dance, the showiness, the high cornfields, the costumes and the expectations, Oklahoma the re-imaging provided an indictment on the way we took over this country. Although it didn't broach Native perspective, it's not a hard leap from this production to also apply the blood-stained expansion to the experiences of those whose land was stolen from them.
If you walked out, if you hated it, let me share with you what you missed. And I recommend - highly - reading a copy of the script. You can do that, here. Read it. Read it like an actor - remove all the stage directions, and focus on the words being said.
OK! opened with six picnic-style wooden tables in a small community room with guns on the wall and a backdrop of a large field and two small houses in the distance. Everything takes place in this community room. It could be a church, or a barn, or a large dance hall - presumably it's the one large room available for this small tight-knit community, where every social event takes place.
The actors didn't leave the stage for most of the first act, and conversation happened often without anyone moving. It was difficult to know who was talking sometimes - and until we got to know who was who, it was easy to get mildly lost waiting to find out who was who. However, in staging it like this, we got the impression that community here was everything. What happened in private also happened in public - everybody knew everything, either immediately or shortly after. There was always someone nearby to overhear, to gossip, to support. And the actors stepped in to offer harmonies where needed, or to sit idly by while private conversations took place sometimes at separate tables, sometimes moving throughout the room.
Curly was the "rock star" of the social space, sometimes literally as he played guitar and figuratively as he was deemed attractive and a sort of leader among the ranchers. When Laurie saw him, he sometimes took on that "larger than life" role that a rock star has. Laurie, a young woman caught in this changing world, was abrasive and sharp. She desired more than her world allowed, but was somewhat trapped by the limited options available to her.
Laurie: Me? Course I want sump'n. Want a buckle made outa shiny silver to fasten onto my shoes! Want a dress with lace. Want perfume, wanta be purty, wanta smell like a honeysuckle vine! Want things I've heard of and never had before-a rubber-t'ard buggy, a cut-glass sugar bowl. Want things I can't tell you about-not only things to look at and hold in yer hands. Things to happen to you. Things so nice, if they ever did happen to you, yer heart ud quit beatin'. You'd fall down dead!
Curly wooed her with manipulations and lies, using his rock star guitar-laden status to appeal to her. It wasn't love, it was a peacock showing its feathers. In a brilliant hint of his motivation, the lights dimmed to reveal the tables' crossed legs that looked like a rancher's fence lining the horizon. Taking over land. Limiting it. Expanding it. Controlling it. Laurie saw through him.
Laurie: Why'd you come around here with yer stories and lies, gittin' me all worked up that a-way? Talkin' 'bout the sun swimmin' on the hill, and all-like it was so. Who'd want to ride 'longside of you anyway?
This production didn't play with the female trope that Laurie was being coy. In this production, Laurie meant every single word. It's what I loved most about this interpretation - it took every character for truth. It opened up the world to the motivations that the original Oklahoma misplaced due to the time period.
Aunt Eller assured Curly that Laurie liked him. But why? Why was Aunt Eller pushing so hard, when she could see her daughter was miserable with the choices in front of her? I hadn't ever questioned this before. What was Aunt Eller's motivation? That was never made perfectly clear in the script, but as other characters revealed themselves, her situation revealed itself as the matriarch of this family - hiring out help to do things her body no longer allowed her to do.
Laurie: I-I wisht I was the way you are.
Aunt Eller: Fiddlesticks! Scrawny and old? You couldn't h'ar [hire] me to be the way I am!
Since Laurie's father was never revealed the presumption was that Aunt Eller ran the farm herself. Finding a husband for her daughter was priority - and somebody who could do the work. Jud had proven himself, and as much as Aunt Eller was pushing Curly toward Laurie, she was looking out for Laurie too. Laurie confessed to Aunt Eller that something was off about Jud.
Laurie: Sumpin' wrong inside him, Aunt Eller. I hook my door at night and fasten my winders agin it. Agin it-and the sound of feet a-walkin' up and down out there under that tree outside my room.
Aunt Eller: Laurie!
Laurie: I know whut I'm talkin' about.
Obsessive, secretive, and on the outskirts of the community, Jud was skilled but not socially connected. In a small community like this. In fact, the casting of Jud as somebody who was not a big brawny person, and somebody who instead possibly had a social anxiety and was smaller in statue and quiet of voice - this lent a beautiful vulnerability to the character that hadn't existed in the bravado and lustful view of the original casting. Here, Jud was pitiable, and Laurie's uncertainty about him became more uncertain. He wasn't an obvious "bad guy." Being disconnected from the community cost him. Living apart from them, "in the smoke house," rather than close to them, and clearly smitten with pornography of the time - while not inherently wrong, painted a picture of someone fiercely lonely but unable to connect.
Curly didn't help.
The staging of Curly's visit to Jud's smoke house was ingenious for a show that had originally been in-the-round. In the round stagings are often intimate, quiet, with smaller houses, and easy to guide your attention to what's important. In a large proscenium room a black-out loses some of the energy that a small room creates - but yet it was a perfect way to create intimacy. All you heard were the voices. You were sitting close in the room with them. Most of the scene between Curly and Jud took place in the dark, but the truth was you didn't need to see it. This allowed you to focus on what was really going on: Curly's manipulation.
Curly: That's a good-lookin' rope you got there. Spins nice. You know Will Parker? He can shore spin a rope. 'S a strong hook you got there. You could hang yerself on that, Jud.
Jud: I could whut?
Curly: Hang yerself. It ud be as easy as fallin' off a log! Fact is, you could stand on a log-er a cheer if you'd rather-right about here-see? And put this here around yer neck. Tie that good up there first, of course. Then all you'd have to do would be to fall off the log-er the cheer, whichever you'd ruther fall off of. In five minutes, or less, with good luck, you'd be daid as a doornail...Nen folks ud stand around you and the men ud bare their heads and the womern ud sniffle softly. Some'd prob'ly faint-ones that had tuck a shine to you when you wuz alive.
Jud: What womern have tuck a shine to me?
Curly: Lots of womern. On'y they don't never come right out and show you how they feel less'n you die first.
As curly spins his story, making Jud feel simultaneously disgusting as a human being, and bolstered in the thought of redemption and perhaps love in his death, a screen showing close-ups of Jud's and Curly's faces played on the backdrop. From our distance, there was no other way we could see the unspoken facial reactions - Jud's taking Curly's words seriously, and Curly enjoying the fact that he was succeeding.
The scene was chilling. And when they both shot their guns, that Aunt Eller chastised them almost immediately was a reminder that as far away as Jud was from the community, they were still watching. Community was still nearby and paying attention.
Ado Annie was cast as a larger woman, in spite of lines in the script specifying "110 pounds" as spoken by Will Parker. First, the casting was fantastic for today's audience. Ado Annie wasn't a shy thing struggling with her desire - THIS Ado Annie completely accepted who she was, proudly. Daringly. She still had some innocence - she was willing to play society's role in listening to her father and marrying when appropriate, but she was fully aware of the fact that men could sleep around and she wasn't supposed to - and she fully rejected it. The men would have to live up to her standards.
Ado Annie: With you if s all er nuthin'- All fer you and nuthin' fer me! But if a wife is wise She's gotta realize That men like you are wild and free. So I ain't gonna fuss, Ain't gonna frown, Have your fun, go out on the town, Stay up late and don't come home, till three, And go right off to sleep, if you're sleepy-There's no use waitin' up fer me!
She rejected Will's offer if he was going to constrain her. The actors played this not as coy, but as real. Will still had work to do if he was going to make a marriage work, and it was clear that of all the relationships shown in this production, Will's desire for Ado Annie was the only romantic one, even if Ado Annie didn't particularly see it that way. Ado's character in this production was my favorite. She was sexually free and unapologetic about it - even if, given the time period, mere kissing was today's "fooling around."
Ado's character revealed the misogyny of the rest of the male characters, including Curly's. Her flirtation with the peddler was fun to watch, since she approached it with sincerity when he clearly didn't. Ultimately, the peddler's sexual promiscuity resulted in a satisfying trap of his own making - the most constrained of all the characters in the end. Originally his character might have been sympathetic - if humorous - to men watching the program. Now, it was relatable and at the same time gave a beautiful sense of just desserts for the way men have abused their privilege for centuries. His wife was pleased with the match, and his misery was his own. For all the women I've seen literally trapped in marriages they could not escape for a billion reasons (over centuries!), this stark view of a man who'd taken advantage of women and ended up taken advantage of in the end was most satisfying.
Laurie, meanwhile, is struggling with the limited options available to her. A manipulative Curly - who was pursuing her doggedly, or the reliable farmhand Jud - who frightened her? The peddler gave her "smelling salts" - but it was clearly a drug of some kind. It could have been acid, or meth, or something that provided visions. She was told the visions would help her settle her heart into a decision, although the community told her clearly that she didn't need drugs to help her. She nonetheless took them.
And that leads us to the second act, and the dance.
Act one ended with me wondering, why does Curly want Laurie so badly? He's a rancher, he could travel. He could easily - just as easily, possibly more so than Jud - move on to other territories. Jud was a proven success with the farm, running it almost singlehandedly.
In fact, Jud was a natural choice for Laurie given his skill at running the land. It's likely the sole reason that Aunt Eller didn't dismiss him entirely - except that Aunt Eller listened to what Laurie had to say about him. And believed her.
But why did Curly want Laurie? His motivation wasn't yet clear.
Open act two. Laurie has just taken some of the peddler's drugs, and we are ready for THE BALLET.
I love modern dance with a gigantic passion. I studied, performed, and choreographed modern dance in college and have followed a number of modern dance companies since then. It's the one style of dance I can't get enough of watching, so I was delighted to see a modern dance interpretation of the ballet, rather than actual ballet.
The glossy "DREAM" shirt of the dancer and the starkness of the stage with the tables moved aside, accompanied by electric rock music made this drug-induced state that Laurie was taking herself into all the more real. Rock music had been established as her vision of Curly as some sort of "rock star," and it played its part in this dance. Unlike the ballet of the original movie, this leapt to the heart of her confusion and provided no easy answers, just as the community had warned. However - a few things were made clearer. She viewed Jud as a snake, crawling around the ground as he gathered the boots that had fallen from the sky (I'd love some interpretation on that? Anyone have any theories for the moment of boots dropping to the ground across the stage in a loud thud?), and while Curly didn't stand out necessarily as a grand choice, he did move as part of the community. It seemed almost as though she had to choose to stand with the community and her social standing, with the progress of her country - or choose someone who balked at that progress, who stood socially apart. The second video segment of the show took place here - where a cameraman followed her so we could see the consternation of the dancer, the exertion, and the distress. In a brilliantly artistic design, the camera followed the dancer along the stage, adding to the dream-like state with the stage lights and shadows and movement behind her. At times the light highlighted the lines of the doors of the backdrop of the stage, creating yet another sense of "fencing." The dream ended without a clear resolution, but with the murky and unsettled deepening awareness that any of us experience with deep dreams - or drug-induced states of mind.
This brought us to the barn dance where the motivations of the characters started to be laid out more clearly. The song about ranchers and farmers laid out a previously hidden conflict - the future of the country. The song claimed "they should be friends" but the langue was becoming clear that what was taking place was staking out territory. Ranchers needed land, and so did farmers. They both were fighting for their stake in the state's future, and the community was being forced to navigate the encroaching limit of land, delineating territory by fences. Drawing lines where previously there had been none. State lines. Farmland. Ranch territory.
At the dance, Jud gets Laurie alone, and confesses that he's been obsessed with her since she touched him once, while he was ill. This was the second scene done in the dark. Visuals weren't necessary, and we needed the intimacy to really hear the words being spoken. It was a private moment, much like Jud and Curly's conversation - one that nobody else would know, that no community member was privy to. Just the characters, and us. Jud's heartache - the awareness that he had no female partner, no other source of human touch or consolation because of the way he'd isolated himself - was devastating. However, as happens with many young people, that laying out of sympathy is often a way to draw women into sexual relations. Such was starting to happen - you could hear slurpy kisses. A belt removed.
The lights came back on slowly as Laurie pushes him away.
And as most women who've ever encountered a rejected man before, Jud shows his true lights. A possible incel? He'd already tried to murder Curly by use of Will Parker's innocent but deadly toy that he'd purchased as a gift, although that was slyly intercepted by a keen-eyed Aunt Eller. This rejection by Laurie was the final straw.
Jud: I ain't good enough, am I? I'm a h'ard hand, got dirt on my hands, pigslop. Ain't fitten to tetch you. You're better, so much better. Yeah, we'll see who's better-Miss Laurey. Nen you'll wisht you wasn't so free 'th yer airs, you're sich a fine lady...
I recognized this anger immediately. She wouldn't be safe, and her decision to fire him was as much a relief to the audience as it must have been to her. Yet when she calls to see Curly, it's not because she's in love with him or wants him, necessarily. She has realized he's a safer choice for herself. She agrees to marry him. And Curly's intentions suddenly become clear:
Curly: Oh, I got to learn to be a farmer, I see that! Quit a-thinkin' about th'owin' the rope, and start in to git my hands blistered a new way! Oh, things is changin' right and left! Buy up mowin' machines, cut down the prairies! Shoe yer horses, drag them plows under the sod! They gonna make a state outa this territory, they gonna put it in the Union! Country a-changin', got to change with it! Bring up a pair of boys, new stock, to keep up 'th the way things is goin' in this here crazy country! Now I got you to he'p me-I'll 'mount to sumpin yit!
This play wasn't about relationships - although it was. At this moment, everything is laid bare. Curly's intention was to take over the farmland. To own Laurie's and Aunt Eller's land. To stake his claim in the future of the state. Jud wanted Laurie, but he didn't care about the future of the state. He didn't want to move the country forward. Curly did. Curly was the future of Oklahoma, and by marrying Laurie he could take that next step.
This brought us to the final scene.
The staging of this scene was as understated as could be. Very little movement. The focus was on the words of the script. Nearly everyone was seated. Nobody moved, instead allowing their words to work so that our imaginations as the audience could fill in the blanks and focus on what was actually happening.
What was happening?
The couple, Laurie and Curly had been married and were set to go on their honeymoon. Rumors that Jud was nearby after a three week absence were circulating. The couple was dancing, but everything stopped when Jud entered the room.
The show that I saw - the audience was dead silent at this moment. The actors took their time, and felt no rush. As far as I could tell, the audience was holding their breath as well. Jud dominated center stage and offered his gift to Curly - the gun with which to kill him. It was both Jud's gift to Curly, and a last ploy to earn the love of the woman he was infatuated with.
The scene was set up so that Laurie made a clear decision to stand with Curly. And he did shoot. In the original, Jud fell on his own knife. In this re-imagining, Curly shot him.
And here was the most American scene of all.
The room was full of witnesses. Everyone had been seated, watching. Jud hadn't taken one step toward Curly, and yet he was dead. The actor's words indicated some degree of chaos: "move him, take him to the farm," etc. etc. But on stage, nobody moved. Curly and Laurie had been tainted with the blood of Jud's death the instant it happened.
The words ran out above all:
CORD ELAM: Best thing is fer Curly to go of his own accord and tell the Judge.
AUNT ELLER: (To Carnes) Why, you're the Judge, ain't you, Andrew?
CARNES: Yes, but-
LAUREY: (Urging Curly forward) Well, tell him now and git it over with.
CORD ELAM: 'T wouldn't be proper. You have to do it in court.
AUNT ELLER: Oh, fiddlesticks. Le's do it here and say we did it in court.
CORD ELAM: We can't do that. That's breaking the law.
AUNT ELLER: Well, le's not break the law. Le's just bend it a little. C'mon, Andrew, and start the trial. We ain't got but a few minnits.
CORD ELAM: Andrew-I got to protest.
CARNES: Oh, shet yer trap. We can give the boy a fair trial without lockin' him up on his weddin' night! Here's the long and short of it. First I got to ask you: Whut's your plea? 'At means why did you do it?
CURLY: Why'd I do it? Cuz he'd been pesterin' Laurey and I always said some day I'd-
CARNES: Jist a minnit! Jist a minnit! Don't let yer tongue wobble around in yer mouth like 'at... Listen to my question.
Whut happened tonight 'at made you kill him.
CURLY: Why he come at me with a knife and-and-
CARNES: And you had to defend yerself, didn't you?
CURLY: Why, yes-and furthermore . . .
CARNES: Never mind the furthermores-the plea is self-defense-
What could be more American than a plea of self-defense in the face of otherwise being held accountable for murder?
Cord Elam, as the sole person who protests, was held to account by the community. Played for laughs in the original, the truth in this staging couldn't have been clearer:
CORD ELAM: (Shaking his hand) Feel funny about it. Feel funny.
AUNT ELLER: You'll feel funny when I tell yer wife you're carryin' on 'th another womern, won't you?
CORD ELAM: I ain't carryin' on 'th no one.
AUNT ELLER: Mebbe not, but you'll shore feel funny when I tell yer wife you air.
Cord had the option of standing apart from the community - and not to any success, mind you, for the community would have moved on without his word - or standing with it. Cord stood with it. That Cord's role was cast with a brown-skinned man added weight to both his protest, and to his uneasy acceptance of moving forward with a society that was staking its claim through injustice.
Again, all of this took place without much movement. The focus on the words, and the moment.
"Oh what a beautiful morning" was sung - this time, with a new tension, and new awareness that the community - the state - the country - was going to move ahead, willfully blind to the slaughter that it was leaving behind. The finale, "Oklahoma!," was less a joyful calling of the hopeful future they were creating, and more of an indictment of the way in which people created the states we now have - the country we now have - the society we now have.
This retelling of mine, based on my experience of the play, is focused on the words of the script - much as the play itself was. If there is not a large description of costumery, staging, dance...it's because much of that was removed from the play itself.
To me, this re-telling of the musical is exactly the sort of revisiting we need to do for most of our works. And please don't get me wrong. I love Jesus Christ Superstar and the flashiness of The Music Man and all of the classics with a deep passion and joyful exuberance.
But it's smart to re-evaluate the things we loved. To look again with clearer eyes to see what was really true, and what wasn't?
Oklahoma could almost have been written today. The universality of the themes and the behaviors of people haven't changed, although social expectations and freedoms certainly have. And I wouldn't want to go back to the limits placed on characters like Laurie and Ado Annie. I don't want to go back to a time when marriage was a land contract (although this still happens).
The progress we made as a country was stained - just as Laurie and Curly were - by the blood spilt in the taking over of land.
But just like Aunt Eller said,
Aunt Eller: Lots of things happen to folks.Sickness, er bein' pore and hungry even-bein' old and afeared to die. That's the way it is-cradle to grave. And you can stand it. They's one way. You gotta be hearty, you got to be. You cain't deserve the sweet and tender in life less'n you're tough.
Buffalo, I want you to toughen up. I want you to be able to come to theatre like this and really hear what's being said. To go on a journey with the text. To let go of the easy palatable song and dance.
This version of Oklahoma is what I want theatre to be all about. Let's push us a little bit.
If we can handle the cold, we can handle truths. Even if you don't like modern dance.
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