allegiances
by Douglas Messerli
Chris Hunt (film director), Trevor
Nunn (stage director), Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics, based on
the play by Lynn Riggs), Richard Rodgers (music) Oklahoma! [Royal National
Theatre, London / 1998, a televised version with a slightly different cast
presented on US PBS stations in 2003]
Even though the Trevor Nunn production attempted to portray Jud in a
more balanced manner, and actor Shuler Hensley succeeded (compared to the film
portrayal by Rod Steiger) in making Jud more likeable, the dangerous aspects of
the culture he represents remained embedded in his behavior. Indeed, in this
production it became even more apparent that Laurey had chosen to go with him
to the social because he was a farmer, and, accordingly, someone more familiar
than the self-assured cowboy Curley.
What the film had not revealed to me quite as clearly as the play was
that, upon asking Laurey to marry him, Curley “converts,” so to speak,
promising to become a farmer. The two warring factions—farmer and cowman—demand
alliances, it appears, almost like the family kinships of Romeo and Juliet. And
the musical even more pointedly reveals that Aunt Eller and friends are ready
to break the law—or at least, as she puts it, “bends it a little”—in order to
speed love on its course.
Los Angeles, November 2003
Reprinted from USTheater, Opera,
and Performance (November 2003).
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