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Bucks County Playhouse delights in an old chestnut.
For real satisfaction, there's nothing like an old chestnut, roasted to perfection and served with style. Oklahoma! is 60 years old (it premiered on Broadway March 31, 1943) and the current production at Bucks County Playhouse lets all the lovely memories come rushing back.
Oklahoma! was the first musical that paired Richard Rodgers with Oscar Hammerstein II. Rodgers had found his former partner, Lorenz Hart, incapable of facing the trials of a major musical, while Hammerstein was searching for a new partner (he was teamed with Jerome Kern for Showboat, but that was 16 years earlier).
The show has been credited with a great many firsts: the first musical to tell a story, the first to introduce ballet, and the first to receive true literary recognition. Strictly speaking, none of these are true. Showboat certainly qualified as a musical that told an important story. Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, years earlier, had a magnificent ballet (danced by Vera Zorina, with Ray Bolger). Of Thee I Sing won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1931.
We probably don't like to remember that the show almost didn't make it to New York. The Theatre Guild, which was producing the show, was down to just $30,000 in the coffers. It was tricky raising the necessary cash: Hammerstein hadn't had a hit in years; the musical was taken from a play (Green Grow the Lilacs) that hadn't been well received; choreographer Agnes De Mille had never worked on Broadway before; and director Rouben Mamoulian had done Porgy and Bess, but it was not a money-maker.
Moreover, the out-of-town tryout didn't promise much. The show then had the name Away We Go, and neither critics nor audiences found much to cheer. Hammerstein and Rodgers went to work. One number was cut, another, originally a duet about the land (with Curly and Laurey) was changed into a rousing "Oklahoma" and that, in turn, led to a change of title for the show. Just before the official opening, an exclamation point was added and the show became Oklahoma! (Another first?)
We know now that the new title helped; eventually Oklahoma! would break the world record for consecutive performances, then held by Chu-Chin-Chow, a British show that racked up performances in World War I London.
The Bucks County staging brings back two of the Playhouse's most talented and best-loved performers-- Jim Lynch as Curly and Robin Leigh Massie as Laurey. He has starred in such shows as Chicago, The Music Man and Annie Get Your Gun over the past few summers. She is best remembered as Marian in The Music Man last season. He leaves just after the final performance in New Hope for an extended run as Jigger in an Equity production of Carousel in Ohio. She gets ready for a major role in The Magic Flute.
More importantly, the two are so compatible on stage that now-familiar lines take on new shadings. Director Michael Licata is superb at bringing out every nuance. Marc Ginsburg is a wonderful Jud Fry, menacing but never melodramatic. Incidentally, he leaves for a 10-month national tour of Oliver right after this production.
Brian Ogilvie is a delicious Will Parker ("Everything's Up-To-Date in Kansas City"). Sadly, you will not see him--he has been called to the Playhouse's sister theater in the Poconos to take on two separate roles, in two weeks, in The Scarlet Pimpernel. From the ensemble, Karen Eislee and Jordan Brennan stand out. Stephen Casey's choreography is outstanding, especially "The Dream Ballet" at the end of Act I.
You will note that many of the performers this summer are being snapped up for important stagings across the country. That's entirely as it should be. They are that good, but notice also that, whenever they have a bit of free time, they return to hone their craft at the Playhouse.