Where in the pantheon does one find a more vibrant and cerebrally remastered golden-age musical variation from the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, the kings of early American musicals, than at Rose Center Theater this season?
WESTMINSTER — Yes, I’m talking about OKLAHOMA! the Pulitzer Prize-Winning 1943 classic which, from the word go, was a major hit and ran on Broadway in an unprecedented 2,212 performances, later enjoying award-winning revivals, adaptations, national tours, foreign productions and spawning an Oscar-winning 1955 film adaptation. Currently playing at the Rose through March 9th, Director Tim Nelson’s reimagined complex masterpiece is not only beautifully different but richly elucidated with newfound relevance: namely, that the metaphorical bright golden haze on the meadow Curly sings about will have more troubling realities soon to follow.
This OKLAHOMA! is, in truth, no longer a simple love story in the soon-to-be state of Oklahoma — this revival (the result of a 2015 workshop at Bard College transferring to Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre for a short run) is now a tale about sensuality, consent, gun violence, sexism, community policing, sexual assault, ethical quandaries, and the terrors of state formation, actualized by a score made up of folky strings, playing new lush orchestrations that have noticeably changed the sound and action of the musical for the better.
Set in the Oklahoma territory in the early 1900s, the story revolves around two triangles of characters: Laurey (a stunning Hannah Huntington; “Mary Poppins”), a pretty young girl who lives with her Aunt Eller, and the two men that love her (the clean-cut Curly and the more sinister Jud Fry), along with another romantic triage: the light-hearted trio of Ado Annie and her two suitors, Will Parker, and the womanizing peddler, Ali Hakim.
Mikey Smith’s cocky cowboy Curly, however, still finds a complicated path to the heart of Ms. Huntington’s vibrantly sensual farmgirl Laurey. The big numbers – “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin,’” “I Cain’t Say No,” “People Will Say We’re In Love” — still come across beautifully. But the themes of awkward young love, poisonous jealousy, exuberant celebration and the hard pragmatism of forging a new state are thrown into the chili cook-off as well.
At its best, which is usually in song or when dancing, this resurrection of R&H’s epochal show is dewy with an adolescent lustiness, both carnal and naive, exuberant and confused. In fact, one could say this production has more sensuality exuding out of it than “Chicago” and “Cabaret” combined.
Here, the testy, flippant indifference that Curly and Laurey feign for each other has a clear suggestive edge, bringing to mind a trace of Benedick and Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing.” Laurey’s other admirer, creepy farmhand Jud, is mesmerizingly played as a wet-eyed, skulking incel by Chris Caputo, who, incidentally, is also the show’s highly proficient technical director. Curly’s jealous taunting of Jud, and Jud’s attempt to woo Laurey, contrast sinister darkness. Laurey, on the other hand, has a different viewpoint. There’s a clear sense here that women are rated for their financial value or provocative capital: And Ms. Huntington’s Laurey seems to burn with the injustice of it.
Comic relief comes from several characters: Mary Murphy-Nelson (clearly basking in the plaudits from her turn in “Robinhood and the White Arrow”) as Laurey’s straight-talking Aunt Eller. And from big-voiced, hilarious Colette Peters as heedless sex-magnet Ado Annie, keeping two men on a string. Eric Dobson (“American Idiot”), is great as the dim, devoted Will Parker, while Vincent Aniceto is a picture of desperation as the itinerant, fast-talking drummer Ali Hakim, trying to escape entanglement, although turning out to be a stand-up guy.
The production veers toward tragedy from the entrance of Chris Caputo’s brooding, begrimed farmhand Jud, whose glowering countenance acknowledges few of the “beautiful mornin’s” of which his rival, Mikey Smith’s open-faced cowboy Curly, is forever singing. It’s easy, at first, to dismiss Jud as a hulking simpleton with, as is remarked of him, “a heart as big as all outdoors.”
But glimpsed in his dark hovel of a home poring over pictures of women when he hungers for the real thing, this Jud is a complex character — one of the most frightening antagonists in musical theatre — and will do what it takes to get what he wants, even if it’s by force…even if it’s by murder.
In a theater moment audiences will be talking about for months to come, Mr. Caputo plays every moment of Jud’s “crawlin’ and festerin’” existence as if his life depended on it. This is a man left out of the pioneering America that Hammerstein’s libretto celebrates, who looks as if he might be more at home in that other Oklahoma-set (at least partly) classic, “The Grapes of Wrath.” Jud’s specific bad luck is to have comically paraded in front of him a funeral by Curly — in a deliciously performed “Poor Jud Is Daid” — that he will end up cruelly undergoing well before his time. The scene occurs as the two men face each other in cramped quarters of a smokehouse, and the ominous lines between sex and violence, already blurred in this gun-toting universe, melt altogether.
It's also telling that in the first act the guys and gals of the prairie town are most confident in sexually segregated groups. There is, on the one hand, the masculine showoff number ''Kansas City'' (charmingly led by Eric Dobson as Will Parker) with a stage full of cowboy hats, chaps, fringed shirts and tight denim, and, on the other, the devil-may-care song that was sung by Shirley Jones in the ’55 film, ''Many a New Day,'' in which the virtuous Laurey leads an all-girl chorus in lessons on how to cope with men.
When the two sexes converge more fully in the terrific second-act opener, ''The Farmer and the Cowman,'' there's a heady, giddy electricity that seems always on the verge of sliding out of control, possibly into violence. They court, spark, fight and reunite, and then dance like prairie nomads.
The score is rigorously interrogated by orchestrator Daniel Kluger and sounds utterly fresh, and you hear slide guitar and banjo alongside plangent strings. Filled with groundbreaking choreography with a savage, stamping, heedless edge, Laurey’s dream sequence nightmare (the “Out of My Dreams” end of first act ballet, possibly the biggest hit of the show) is carried out to perfection by Jennifer Simpson-Matthews and Diane Makus’ troupe of first-rate performers, featuring OC Artist of the Year Sofia Aniceto as Laurey’s fantasy alternate, with dancer Taven Blanke simulating a dream Curly. That is succeeded in the second act with an excellently choreographed “All Er Nuthin’” in another supreme aesthetic delight.
Many handclaps to notable supporting leads Cliff Senior as spunky shotgun-totin' Judge Andrew Carnes (papa to Ado Annie) without whose intervention Curly would be possibly facing a rope. And kudos to Laura Pasarow Bangasser's wickedly funny laugh; Ms. Bangasser portrays Gertie (Laurey's romantic rival for Curly), the "other" pretty girl in town.
Indeed, everyone in the cast excels in their roles, and it’s hard to imagine a more immediately charming Curly than Mikey Smith, (who played Joseph in …”Dreamcoat” at the Rose) marshaling a role that in lesser hands can seem oddly smarmy: He’s as pliable, the staging suggests, as Jud is rigidly doomed, and Mr. Smith makes an appealing and beautifully sung case for a man who won’t be left behind by the winds of change in “this here crazy country.”
ROSE CENTER THEATER PRESENTS — RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN’S OKLAHOMA!; Book and Lyrics by OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II; Music by RICHARD ROGERS; Based on the play “Green Grow the Lilacs” by LYNN RIGGS; Director/Musical Director TIM NELSON; Technical Director/Scenic/Lighting/Projection Design by CHRIS CAPUTO; Choreography by JENNIFER SIMPSON-MATTHEWS & DIANE MAKAS; Wig Design by CLIFF SENIOR; Prop Design by SHERRE TITUS; Costume Design by CAROLE ZELINGER; Production Stage Manager DAVID ELLIOTT.
STARRING: MIKEY SMITH • HANNAH HUNTINGTON • ERIC DOBSON • COLETTE PETERS • MARY MURPHY-NELSON • CHRIS CAPUTO • LAURA PASAROW BANGASSER • VINCENT ANICETO • CLIFF SENIOR
FEATURING: ED BANGASSER • ANDREW BROOME • RAY DAVIS • TAVEN BLANKE • JOSH MARTINEZ • JOHN PREDNY • SCOTT JUHL • TAWNI BRIDENBALL • DANICA HEMMENS • SHERRI VASQUEZ • ALYSSA PHELEN • SOFIA ANICETO
WITH: SANDY ANICETO • EVE DEVAULT • DALLAS DUDLEY • CHAZZ DURAN • TAYA FOSMIRE • JASON GALVAN • KELLI GRIFFIN • GINA HIGGINBOTHAM • ARI INGWERSON • COLE JOHNSON • ABIGAIL JONES • CARRI ANNE MANNING • JILLIAN MATTHEWS • KYLIE MATTHEWS • AVA MELGOZA • ZARIAH MERRILL • BRETT POPIEL • BRANDON REYES • DARIEN RORICK • CAT SACKSTEDER • NATALIE SAND • SERAPHINE TRAN • MARCUS VEYETTE • SOPHIAGRACE WILLIAMS
ROSE CENTER THEATER’S “RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN’S OKLAHOMA!” runs February 21st through March 9th with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30PM and Sundays at 2PM. 14140 All American Way, Westminster CA. Running Time approx. 2 hours, 30 mins including one 15-min. intermission. For Tickets, visit: www.rosecentertheater.com/
Chris Daniels
Arts & Entertainment Reviewer
The Show Report
Photo Credit: Ryan Salazar, @ryansalazar & Rose Center Theater @rosecnetertheater
