Friday, August 21, 2015

Oklahoma at HCT

Wednesday night I saw Hale Theatre's production of the classic musical Oklahoma!  Every song is instantly recognizable: "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," "The Surrey With The Fringe On Top," "Kansas City," "People Will Say We're In Love," "The Farmer and the Cowman," and, of course, "Oklahoma!" I've seen this show many, many times and I was quite impressed with what Hale was able to do on such a small and intimate stage. The choreography was absolutely amazing and I especially loved the rope tricks by Will Parker (Jack David Shapiro) in "Kansas City." The Dream Sequence was extremely well done. I think having Laurey (Elise Groves) and Curly (Derek Smith) as children and then adolescents together was very effective at showing their relationship and it was very impressive that Groves and Smith danced their own parts (most productions have a Dream Laurey and Dream Curly). I also think the Dream Sequence was very bold in its depiction of Jud (Jacob Theo Squire).  He is truly menacing and he literally made my skin crawl during this number. I always think Jud is a difficult character. Usually I have some sympathy for him and I feel a little bit unsettled by the exuberant happy ending after his death.  But in this production, I did not like Jud at any point. Director David Tinney made a bold choice to portray Jud as Native American and, at first I didn't like this characterization because it made me feel guilty about not liking him. However, I think Jud is supposed to be a polarizing figure who makes everyone uneasy so, after thinking about it, I feel it was very apt! I also thought it was quite interesting that Tinney chose to have Aunt Eller (Lizanne Chapman) break down in tears alone on the stage following the trial. As I mentioned, I've never been comfortable with such a happy ending after the death of another, however reprehensible that person might be. All of the actors have wonderful voices and seem to have a lot of fun with their characters, particularly Heather McDonald as Ado Annie and Andrew Hansen as Ali Hakim. My only complaint is that I sometimes couldn't hear Aunt Eller but that may have been a technical issue. Set designer Kacey Udy continues to amaze me with what he is able to build on such a small stage. This time he created a full size wooden windmill tower!  Quite impressive!  I would highly recommend this production because it contains all of the familiar and well-loved musical numbers but the story is presented in a completely new way! It runs until Oct. 3 and you can purchase tickets here (but get them quickly because many shows are sold out).

Note:  When I bought my season tickets last year, I had no idea that this show would fall on the first day of school.  It was a long day...

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