Ive always enjoyed musical theater, and yet somehow I had never seen Oklahoma! Didnt even know, really, what it was about. My wife and I corrected this over the last couple of days, watching a top-notch production that aired on PBS some years ago, with Hugh Jackman in the lead. Its a great musical, no doubt about it, except for two things: The beginning and the end. At the beginning, we see that two people, Curly and Laurey, desperately want to be together, but standing in their way is... absolutely nothing. By all rights, this musical should be five minutes long. Curly should sing Surrey With A Fringe On The Top, Laurey should be charmed, and the two of them should ride off into the sunset. There is no reason on earth this could not be the case, except for the characters own titanic stubbornness. But, hey, fine, they are both stubborn as all hell. So instead Laurey makes the seriously demented mistake of agreeing to attend that evenings barn dance with her farmhand, Jud Fry, even though Jud makes Laurey uneasy and even frightened. The PBS production is worth watching for many reasons, but Shuler Hensleys Jud is near the top of the list. He won Olivier and Tony awards for the role, and deservedly so: Jud could easily be a cartoon villain, all intimidation and macho nonsense, but Hensley makes him wholly human, even pitiable. He radiates loneliness, and he undoubtedly loves Laurey... but has no idea how to go about showing that, except through violence. Once Jud gets into the picture, the story is on rails -- we can only be heading for an inevitable Curly/Jud confrontation. Heres how that goes: Curly and Laurey finally break through their self-imposed stupidity and get married. Jud shows up drunk and fights Curly, and winds up falling on his own knife. Ta da. And then the bizarre, unaccountable ending: There is a general feeling that Curly must be held accountable for Juds death -- a Federal marshal on hand wants to take him to jail. Instead, they set up a courtroom *right there in the farmyard* and, in the closing minutes of the play, have themselves the silliest trial imaginable. Not a single character on the stage believes Curly has committed a crime -- not the judge, not the Federal marshal, nobody. They all witnessed the very fight they are now deliberating: They know Curly acted in self-defense. There are no stakes here, no real threat of Curly going to jail, no real reason to even keep watching the play. After some pretty intense drama earlier on, this is a mighty strange way to conclude things. Is this, by any chance, Oklahoma!s reputation -- great in general, but a ridiculous ending -- and were just 70 years late to the party?
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 14:23:44 +0000