Oklahoma! vs. Woke-lahoma! (The Traditionalist and the Avant-Garde Should Be Friends)

 Here in L.A. the recent talk of the town was the edgy new production of an old war-horse that moved from Broadway to the Ahmanson Theatre. Oklahoma!, which launched the musical partnership of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, premiered on Broadway in 1943. It thrilled audiences with its tuneful songs (“Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’”, “People Will Say We’re in Love”) and its hearty dose of Americana. Up until Oklahoma!, hit Broadway musicals were usually loosely assembled collections of musical numbers featuring tuxedo-clad men, beautiful chorus girls, and snappy repartee. Oklahoma! was not the first Broadway hit to delve more deeply into characterization and social commentary. (Show Boat, which dealt boldly with race relations, had been launched back in 1927.) But Oklahoma!’s homespun settings, and its songs written to define character and advance the drama, seemed a fresh new approach during the war years. The show, performed not by Broadway stars but by singers capable of exuding dramatic power, won a special Pulitzer Prize, as well as the hearts of audiences worldwide.

 Today we hardly see what the fuss was about.  It’s easy to dismiss as corny a plot that hinges on which swain will buy a pretty girl’s picnic hamper at their town’s box social. And even some of the genuine innovations now seem old-fashioned. For instance, there’s that dream ballet in which a stand-in for the show’s leading lady dances out her romantic uncertainties through Agnes de Mille’s artsy choreography.

 The dramatic ambitions of Hammerstein’s book hinge on the show’s strangest element, the handling of a character named Jud Fry. He’s a hired hand with a yen for Laurey, who’s clearly much more interested in a rakish cowboy named Curly. Scruffy and taciturn, with a taste for pornography, Jud is no one’s dream date. He’s treated with contempt by Curly (who encourages him to kill himself), and sneered at by everyone else. The new production that picked up Tony Awards in 2019 leans into the mystery of Jud, and why Laurey allows him to drive her to that box social. The whole section of the show involving Jud becomes intense and steamy, complete with a psychosexual dream ballet that is hardly as genteel as Agnes de Mille’s. And the interracial cast in the touring production features a very large transexual woman grotesquely playing a flirtatious role usually inhabited by someone petite and cute. At the performance I saw, this production was far too “woke” for most of the audience to tolerate.      

 Which brings me to the Hollywood version from 1955. After seeing Woke-lahoma! on the Ahmanson stage,  I was glad to turn to a more traditional version, with the appealing Gordon MacRae as Curly, the lovely Shirley Jones making her film debut as Laurey, and other Hollywood musical stalwarts in the cast. The de Mille ballet remains excessive, featuring the dream-Laurey psychologically shaken by seeing a leering Jud in the company of some racy painted ladies. And some new histrionics are added, like Laurie pushing Jud out of his wagon when he tries to kiss her, and then Jud viciously setting fire to a haystack in an act of revenge. In this film, Jud is played by Rod Steiger. I hear Marlon Brando was considered for the role, and his brooding handsomeness might have helped explain the attraction/repulsion Laurey is supposed to be feeling. But who’d be tempted to go astray with as stolid a guy as Steiger? This casting  just confirms the show’s basic contradictions. Rodgers and Hammerstein would try again to balance romantic fun with sexual tension in their next show, the brilliant Carousel.  

Rodgers and Hammerstein Go to the Movies

As a kid who adored musicals, whether on stage or screen, I grew up with a special affection for the 1956 movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. I loved it all: the rousing choral singing by the whalers and their gals; the romantic duet between Billy Bigelow (Gordon MacRae) and Julie Jordan (Shirley Jones); young Louise’s poignant dance on the shore. That uplifting final reprise of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” never failed to reduce me to tears.

Given my love for Carousel, I was surprised to find the film version dissed in Todd Purdum’s authoritative Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution. According to Purdum, critics were universally scornful, and Carousel became the only one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s major films not to be nominated for a single Oscar. The story of Carousel -- the tale of a ne’er-do-well carnival barker lured into a criminal act for the sake of his unborn child --  is at base a dark one, and it didn’t help that the Hollywood bosses insisted on blunting its edgy appeal in the name of propriety. Even the mildest oaths (like “what the hell”) had to be removed from the script, and the powerful moment of Billy killing himself to avoid arrest was changed in the film version into a deadly accident. Moreover, audiences were apparently not taken with the romantic duo of MacRae and Jones, because the two had already been paired the year before in the hit Todd-AO adaptation of Oklahoma! that had been nominated for four Oscars and won two.

What would Carousel have been like with Frank Sinatra in the leading role? Riding high after his dramatic tour-de-force in From Here to Eternity, Sinatra had actually signed to play Billy Bigelow, but then backed out at the very last moment. Purdum gives two possible explanations for his behavior, and I’ve heard Shirley Jones insist on a third. In her telling, Sinatra changed his mind because he lost his nerve, intimidated by the challenges of the Rodgers and Hammerstein score. Sinatra could sing, of course. But it’s surprising to learn how often Hollywood was comfortable about the idea of dubbing a star’s singing voice. For the role of Julie, producer Darryl Zanuck urged the hiring of the very lovely, very British, very non-singing Jean Simmons. And the casting process for Oklahoma! produced such unlikely ideas as Paul Newman as Curley, Richard Burton as Jud Fry, Elsa Lanchester as Aunt Eller, and Rosemary Clooney as Ado Annie. The leading lady, Laurey, could have been played by Piper Laurie, June Allyson, or Doris Day.

The King and I (also 1956) starred a non-singer, Deborah Kerr, who was nevertheless ideally suited to her role in terms of both her nationality and her image. (Marni Nixon, uncredited, provided the perfect singing voice.) But this film – for my money the best Rodgers and Hammerstein translation from stage to screen – also boasted the talents of Yul Brynner, who had burst onto the Broadway stage in the unforgettable role of the King of Siam. The beloved South Pacific should have been equally successful on film: for one thing, it was directed by Joshua Logan, who had made both Oklahoma! and Carousel into Broadway triumphs. Alas, stage directors sometimes get carried away with the possibilities of the film medium. Logan had the bright idea of using color filters in front of the camera to tint the negative in evocative colors. So when nurse Nellie Forbush  (Mitzi Gaynor) sang about being a cockeyed optimist, the sky really WAS a bright canary yellow. And Bali H’ai looked positively psychedelic. What the hell?