Oklahoma! – St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, New York

Rebecca Naomi Jones and Damon Daunno in Oklahoma! at St Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, New York. Pictures: Teddy Wolff

Oklahoma! continues at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, New York until 11 November 2018. 

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The dream ballet that ordinarily ends Act I has been moved to the start of Act II, and it’s performed in stunning muscular fashion and pretty much as a solo by a bare-footed shaved-headed modern dancer in a shiny white shirt imprinted with bold black lettering spelling out ‘Dream Baby Dream’.

That’s only one of the alterations to be found in the revisionist revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! created by conceptual director Daniel Fish. It’s now holding forth in celebratory fashion at the expansive and picturesque Off-Broadway venue of St. Ann’s Warehouse, occupying a one-time tobacco warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront.

The production was first mounted in 2015 as part of the annual Sumerscape festival at Bard College, a progressive institution overlooking New York State’s Catskill Mountains. There it was critically hailed as a telling exploration of the undercurrents of this classic, ground-breaking musical.

Born on Broadway in 1943 in the dark days of the Second World War, the original production of Oklahoma! ran for 2,212 performances. With its storytelling artfully integrated with a glorious score to deliver homespun freshness and rejoicing in the American spirit, it emerged as a sort of ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ of American musical theatre.

In Fish’s reimagining, the show – which takes place, as I’m sure you know, just after the turn of the last century in Indian Territory, soon to become the State of Oklahoma – seethes with darker and visceral currents, currents that deal with sexuality and politics, while the set design by Laura Jellinek surrounds the onlookers with an immersive feel.

The performance space has the airy ambience of a community meeting hall in party mode, with ribbons of metallic fringe streaming across the ceiling. The audience borders both lengthwise sides of the rectangular playing space, with the first rows seated at long banquet tables. The seven-piece band is situated at one end of the playing space. And creating more party atmosphere, the audience at intermission can get in line to be served a cup of chili and cornbread.

A musical updating as well is felt with the start of the opening number. Damon Daunno, making a rather scruffy, boyishly likeable Curly, comes on stage strumming an acoustic guitar, and ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’’ carries the suggestion of a flirty, funky waltz beat.

The object of this cowboy’s flirtation is Laurey, who lives on her Aunt Eller’s farm and as played (and sung) with affecting contemporary resonance in a rich performance by Rebecca Naomi Jones, she’s a woman of considerable self-confidence not easily taken in. The hormonal attraction is obvious, but there’s a clash of personality to get through. The two performers provide a wonderful reading of the pull and push of their mutual attraction in ‘Surrey With the Fringe On Top’ as well as ‘People Will Say We’re in Love’.

Laurey’s feelings for Curly are further conflicted by the attention paid her by Jud Fry, the brooding outsider who works and lives on Aunt Eller’s farm. An instinctual fear of assault, perhaps fostered by women’s place in this society, sometimes quivers through Laurey’s persona. Her quiet a cappella rendition of ‘Out of My Dreams,’ which closes Act I, is a compelling depiction of this state of mind.

As for Jud, his loneliness, as well as menace, are deeply explored by Patrick Vaill’s performance. His delivery of ‘Lonely Room,’ in which Jud sings of his need for Laurey to change his miserable life, builds to a galvanising cri de coeur.

Whether Curly or Jud will win the bidding for Laurey’s lunch at the town social is the plot turn driving the show’s climax. When Jud is killed – under circumstances altered from the original – and the town quickly dismisses his death in favour of the town’s favourite couple, only just wed, Fish lets the darkness of a corrupted community seep in, just slightly but enough to be disconcerting.

The reprise of the rousing title number, first sung with pride and happiness when it’s announced the territory will soon be a state, is delivered with an unsmiling frenzy, almost as a defensive nationalistic declaration, and the smidgen of ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’’ at the final blackout can be seen as taking on an ironic tone.

Or maybe not. It may all rest with the eye of the beholder. And certainly at the performance attended, the beholders seemed to be entirely entranced and left in a happy mood by a work overflowing with sumptuous Richard Rodgers melodies and lyrics of genius perfection by Oscar Hammerstein II.

Ali Stroker in Oklahoma!

Among the additional enjoyments is the subplot of Hammerstein’s book, the romantic triangle between the town’s chronic party girl Ado Annie, the itinerant Persian peddler Ali Hakim and the cowboy Will Parker. It’s portrayed in winning fashion by Ali Stroker, Michael Nathanson and James Davis, respectively… and fairly conventional fashion as well… well, except for the act that Stroker is a wheel-chair-bound actress. But this seems to hamper nothing in her performance. It may even add to audience empathy. ‘I Cain’t Say No’ registers as deliciously as it ever has, with Stroker adding to the fun by flirting directly with members of the audience.

Nathanson makes Ali Hakim an obviously sleazy but amusing serial womaniser rather than a lovable vaudeville comic, and he gives him a bit of contemporary sexiness as well.

Davis’ Will has an appealing obtuseness, and his high-stepping prancing as he describes his visit to ‘Kansas City’ is a chuckle-inspiring bit of energised character dancing, more enthusiasm than art.

John Heginbotham does the choreography, which except for the aforementioned dream ballet solo performed with jaw-dropping athleticism by Gabrielle Hamilton, is fairly minimal, compared with the acclaimed dance originally designed by Agnes de Mille.

Among the other assets is veteran New York actress Mary Testa’s Aunt Eller, imbuing the character with a matriarchal smart wisecracking tone and keeping it genuine. She also gets an opportunity or two to show off her own impressive vocal talents.

The new orchestrations by Daniel Kluger are ear-tickling, lending the show tune classics an occasional countrified or contemporary pop sound but not overdoing it and often respecting the signature phrasings given Rodgers’ melodies by the original orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett. Other key credits include the mixed looks of Terese Wadden’s costumes, the lighting of Scott Zielinski, the sound design of Drew Levy and the music direction of Nathan Koci.

There are times when director Fish perhaps overdoes his credentials as a conceptualist. A couple of key passages are acted out in pitch blackness, such as the conversation between Jud and Curly in the grubby former smokehouse where Jud resides. And when the two go into ‘Pore Jud Is Dead’, their images are video-projected in intense closeup onto a wall of the set. I’m not quite sure why except that avant-garde theatre-makers seem to like to do that.

But for the most part, Fish’s approach while risky, daring and sometimes just showy, doesn’t violate the basic appeal of this wonderful piece, and if it means endowing it with updated relevance for present and future generations, so be it.

Other productions are going further. In a production this year at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, both Laurey and Curly are women, and Will and Ado Annie – or rather Andy – are both males. And the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, the caretaker of the pair’s musicals, is – just like the show’s title song – saying ‘O.K.!’

       Ron Cohen