@ Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 25 Apr 2015 (and touring)
The wind fair comes sweeping up the plain in this somewhat windy production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! in a Royal and Derngate Northampton presentation. Sure, all the great songs are here and belted out by a thigh-slapping cast – from the grand swoop of the opening number Oh, What a Beautiful Morning to the tenderness of People Will Say We’re in Love. This pioneering (1943) musical reinvented the form by integrating book, music, lyrics, comedy and dance (and made what’s been called ‘drama out of cliché’). It’s romantic, poetic and heart-swelling without ever being sentimental.
Amid the prairies of the Oklahoma Territory as it struggles with statehood and the looming 20th century the company sings ‘we know we belong to the land / and the land we belong to is grand’. It’s the war-cry of every patriot hungry for self-determination.
Yet, for all that, it’s a musical that’s slightly curling at the edges. The ploughmen and the cowboys and their womenfolk tend land and hope to find a mate which requires much subterfuge and gameplaying. Laurey (Charlotte Wakefield) attempts to pique the interest of her would-be beau, Curly (Ashley Day in heart-thumping form), by spurning him in favour of the lumbering Jud (the bravura Nic Greenshields), while her gal pal Ado Annie (the large-lung’d Lucy May Barker) Just Cain’t Say No to the boys, even Ali Hakin (Gary Wilmot) the itinerant pedlar.
There is something very dark at the heart of this tale of gingham amid the cornfields and for modern audiences this is perhaps where the most interest lies. While the sexual politics don’t bear much scrutiny – ‘quit it woman or else I’ll spank ya’ hollers Curly at one point – the disturbing subplot about the creepy misfit Jud who stalks Laurey seems more relevant today than ever. How I would have liked to have seen James Dean in the widescreen 50s movie version in the Jud role for which he was once considered.
Francis O’Connor’s cluttered set somewhat belies the wide open spaces and dwarfs the Festival Theatre’s huge stage but there’s plenty of heart in director Rachel Kavanaugh’s production (the famous Agnes de Mille dream ballet sequence is worth the ticket price alone).