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Post by couldileaveyou on Feb 23, 2023 11:20:51 GMT
can you please spoil for me what the new ending is? bearing in mind that I've not actually seen a traditional staging of Oklahoma, but
{Spoiler - click to view}
from what I understand they actually haven't changed the text at all, it's just the way they've staged it that makes it different. Curly shooting Jud at the end is showed to be not self defence at all, Jud is nowhere near Curly or even acting aggressive in any way when Curly shoots Jud. And then the trial at the end is directed so that it seems more like a show trial where Curly being 'not guilty' is more iffy and not presumed. The way the actors do their lines (Aunt Eller and Ado Annie's dad as the Judge) make it seem a lot more morally ambiguous if that makes sense? {Spoiler - click to view}
yeah Curly pretty much shoots Judd in cold blood. The text of the following dialogue & trial is (I think) unchanged, but played in such a way that the judge is basically blackmailed by Aunt Eller ("You'll feel funny when I tell yer wife you're carryin' on 'th another womern, won't you?", "I ain't carryin' on 'th no one", "Mebbe not, but you'll shore feel funny when I tell yer wife you air") into acquitting Curly and the trial is a travesty of justice |
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Post by thistimetomorrow on Feb 23, 2023 11:28:33 GMT
the judge is basically blackmailed by Aunt Eller ("You'll feel funny when I tell yer wife you're carryin' on 'th another womern, won't you?", "I ain't carryin' on 'th no one", "Mebbe not, but you'll shore feel funny when I tell yer wife you air") into acquitting Curly and the trial is a travesty of justice {Spoiler - click to view}
it was the justice officer guy who gets blackmailed not the judge! I think the judge was perfectly happy to let Curly go |
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Post by ladidah on Feb 23, 2023 12:00:04 GMT
So interesting, thank you!
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Post by TallPaul on Feb 23, 2023 14:06:35 GMT
You wait ages for a spoiler, then, just like buses, three come along together!  |
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Post by apubleed on Feb 23, 2023 19:18:05 GMT
Did anyone see this in NYC? If so, what did you think? I LOVED the production in NYC, one of my all-time fav revivals. So I don't want to spoil those memories if the transfer hasn't worked quite as well...
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Post by Dr Tom on Feb 23, 2023 20:44:21 GMT
Did anyone see this in NYC? If so, what did you think? I LOVED the production in NYC, one of my all-time fav revivals. So I don't want to spoil those memories if the transfer hasn't worked quite as well... I preferred the UK version of the two. It worked slightly better in the Young Vic, but I can’t fault the transfer. |
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Post by pws on Feb 24, 2023 10:42:34 GMT
Did anyone see this in NYC? If so, what did you think? I LOVED the production in NYC, one of my all-time fav revivals. So I don't want to spoil those memories if the transfer hasn't worked quite as well... Yes, saw this and even got some chilli in the interval. It was great that there were so many of the NYC cast and band in the Young Vic performances, but the NYC version definitely was better (perhaps because I knew what to expect in the London version).
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Post by alece10 on Feb 24, 2023 10:44:18 GMT
If you can stomach Dermot and Alison (personally I cant) the cast of Oklahoma are on This Morning today.
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Post by properjob on Feb 25, 2023 23:57:04 GMT
I saw this and loved it but I love a dark musical. It really shows what a really good new staging can do.
The dream ballet is weird but then aren't all dream ballets but I can see why they kept it to be true to the original piece while also putting a modern spin on it.
I can imagine that some people will hate it though. I'm surprised the poll has so many 3 star votes as I expected it to be much more polarising.
The whole end sequence is genuinely shocking but so, so, well done.
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Post by Rory on Feb 28, 2023 15:45:05 GMT
I can't believe Patrick Vaill didn't get an Olivier nomination for this.
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Post by thistimetomorrow on Feb 28, 2023 16:17:00 GMT
I can't believe Patrick Vaill didn't get an Olivier nomination for this. Same. I thought he would win and am shocked he didn't even get nominated! |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Feb 28, 2023 18:29:23 GMT
If you can stomach Dermot and Alison (personally I cant) the cast of Oklahoma are on This Morning today. I watched this and I found the performance painful. They were trying so hard/too hard to sound edgy and modern. Lots of stamping and heavy guitar strumming. But then you get glimpses of the original orchestration and the two clash horribly. I know it was only a short excerpt and it was out of context of the rest of the reworking. But I just couldn't stand it. The title number should feel celebratory not angry and agitated. *Shudder* |
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Post by Being Alive on Mar 1, 2023 15:27:52 GMT
It's absolutely baffling that the Oliviers nominated Clive Rowe over Patrick Vaill.
He was easily the best male performance in a musical of the entire year, and his omission (just like it was at the Tonys) is completely illogical - ESPECIALLY when Arthur comes out of this with a Best Actor nom....
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Post by mattnyc on Mar 2, 2023 1:00:27 GMT
When I saw this originally on Broadway I absolutely HATED it. But I did decide to see it again tonight to see if anything had changed. I did think the production was overall better here than it was in NYC but I still don’t think the concept works, as a whole. And that dream ballet is just painful to watch. But at least now you can barely see it with all of the fog, so…tiny blessings, I guess. The cast can’t be faulted (I felt), it’s entirely this concept that at every step feels like it wants to say something and comment on things so it just screams “WE WANT TO SAY SOMETHING AND COMMENT ON THINGS!” but it never actually says anything.
Certain scenes as well still make no sense to me like the scenes totally in the dark - seriously what’s the point of that? Especially when it leads to the same homoerotic moment that when I saw it originally someone yelled out “Kiss!”, so they’ve added this whole element to their story that leads nowhere. There was even some scene now where Curly is close to Judd again adding a little more sexual tension but it’s all for nothing. And that right there is a perfect example of the “we want to say something but then never actually say it” that I was talking about.
But anyways, for what it’s worth, the show IS better than it was in New York and I guess I’d go from half a star to one and a half or two stars.
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Post by edi on Mar 2, 2023 9:12:10 GMT
Why is the dream ballet painful to watch?
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Post by thistimetomorrow on Mar 2, 2023 11:16:17 GMT
It's absolutely baffling that the Oliviers nominated Clive Rowe over Patrick Vaill. I wonder how much of it is name recognition from the voters. |
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Post by alicechallice on Mar 2, 2023 11:32:17 GMT
Why is the dream ballet painful to watch? It isn't, in my opinion. It's a piece of modern dance. It's just that it's intentionally rough around the edges and lacks the classic stylings that people expect from musical theatre, which I think is why it's come in for a lot of flak. The night I was there, you could tell the audience thought it was great. |
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Post by mattnyc on Mar 2, 2023 11:51:27 GMT
And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with modern dance. However the ballet in “Oklahoma” serves to push the story forward and that is so sadly, gone now. Plus, like I said the fog onstage makes a large portion of it (depending on where you’re sitting, I’d imagine) impossible to see so you’re just looking at smoke and an occasional figure moving around.
So for me again, it’s a matter of “WE ARE SAYING SOMETHING” but nothing is actually said.
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Post by juicy_but_terribly_drab on Mar 2, 2023 14:57:53 GMT
And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with modern dance. However the ballet in “Oklahoma” serves to push the story forward and that is so sadly, gone now. Plus, like I said the fog onstage makes a large portion of it (depending on where you’re sitting, I’d imagine) impossible to see so you’re just looking at smoke and an occasional figure moving around. So for me again, it’s a matter of “WE ARE SAYING SOMETHING” but nothing is actually said. Even though I don't agree that the rest of the show's choices are for no good reason, the ballet was definitely the one part of the production that I did not particularly care for. It was well-performed and I actually really like the orchestrations, but the choreography I just find very repetitive (lots of galloping in circles as I remember) and doesn't really convey anything until the rest of the cast show up in like the last minute (and even then I didn't find it very clear what it was trying to say, at least compared to what the dream ballet usually conveys). It feels like it's mostly just there to set a mood really but I'm not sure it needs to be almost 10 minutes then if that's the case. |
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Post by matty on Mar 2, 2023 23:18:49 GMT
Managed to get a rush ticket this morning and was sat in A10 in the stalls. Loved being that close and getting to see the band front and centre.
I really enjoyed this production at the YV and while I think it worked better in that space,I still enjoyed it tonight. But good grief that dream ballet just did nothing for me - it feels like they've put it as the start of Act 2 so as to not encourage people to leave at the interval. It's well performed, but I didn't understand why she was hitting and scratching herself so much (maybe the meaning of the dance is obvious and it just went over my head?)
Anyway, good night out and glad I got to see this again
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Post by richey on Mar 3, 2023 0:45:20 GMT
Saw it this evening and on the whole enjoyed it, though I thought it was trying to be too clever in parts. Didn't like the dance, or the music that accompanied it, but did like the orchestrations of the other songs.
Really annoying women in front trying to make clapping along happen (thankfully it didn't) then getting up and leaving during the final reprise, making the whole row stand up, which kind of ruined the mood of the ending.
I was also rather surprised that having been sent a long list of trigger warnings prior to the show (including food on stage?!) and posters in the theatre, none of them made reference to the rather shocking end.
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Post by kyvai on Mar 18, 2023 23:25:31 GMT
Saw this tonight. I really wanted to like it - sadly, the whole thing just fell completely flat for me. And everyone around me whose conversations I overheard as well. The theatre was massively uncomfortable, physically - the lights being up made it hot and distracting. The vocals were only ok, I think intentionally as I’ve heard some of those performers sing way better in other shows. The set looks like a sauna (feels like one too haha) so there’s nothing to be said about that, and there isn’t any interesting choreography to speak of. The dream ballet sequence - that was like a random different show for a few minutes, there was no obvious relevance to what she was doing on the stage. And at the expense of off all this obvious posturing - look how modern and minimal and statementy we’re being - there really didn’t seem to be any actual point? I’m left just feeling disappointed.
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Post by Dr Tom on Mar 22, 2023 9:59:26 GMT
I made my second visit post transfer on Monday night. Everything is bedded in well now.
I got the end of Row A as a rush ticket, which is a perfect seat. Second row, but no one in front. Still pretty central, but a clearer angle to see the stage around the band. Still in the splash zone though.
One gentleman in the middle of the front row left about five minutes before the interval and didn't return.
There have been some changes since previews and a lot of things have been simplified. They no longer peel and break up the corn (or indeed have any corn on stage). And during the interpretative dance, the shoes fall one or two at a time over the course of a minute, rather than all at once. I have no idea what that version (or the previous one) is meant to simplify.
I think they do the final effect in a different way to at the Young Vic.
There is a lot of advertising for this production out around the tube network, including some big billboards.
The show also finished at 10:20pm, so shorter than before. I can't pick up on any obvious cuts, so perhaps the interval was shorter. This remains excellent.
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Post by tal on Mar 25, 2023 15:32:37 GMT
I made my second visit post transfer on Monday night. Everything is bedded in well now. I got the end of Row A as a rush ticket, which is a perfect seat. Second row, but no one in front. Still pretty central, but a clearer angle to see the stage around the band. Still in the splash zone though. One gentleman in the middle of the front row left about five minutes before the interval and didn't return. There have been some changes since previews and a lot of things have been simplified. They no longer peel and break up the corn (or indeed have any corn on stage). And during the interpretative dance, the shoes fall one or two at a time over the course of a minute, rather than all at once. I have no idea what that version (or the previous one) is meant to simplify. I think they do the final effect in a different way to at the Young Vic. There is a lot of advertising for this production out around the tube network, including some big billboards. The show also finished at 10:20pm, so shorter than before. I can't pick up on any obvious cuts, so perhaps the interval was shorter. This remains excellent. To be fair, they do have some corn in the second act. I think it’s during The Farmer and the Cowman, and it’s Rebekah Hinds‘ character eating a real corn during the scene. I noticed this when I went on Thursday this week. That being said, I really miss all the corn during Many a New Day. I think it was hilarious and somehow always felt quite postfeminist to me. In the current iteration, I think the women are just sitting down while singing the song. The voices are still beautiful, but the scene is definitely not as strong as it was at the Young Vic for me. |
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Post by max on Mar 25, 2023 17:22:20 GMT
I’m so ambivalent about Rodgers and Hammerstein. Never sure whether (for Musical Theatre at that time) their touches of social commentary were brave and daring; or whether they took tough material from other sources and softened it down, keeping only enough grit to gain kudos, while probing the issues just puddle deep. I always thought Lyn Riggs was a female writer (my bad), but he was a part Cherokee gay man who had written plays on Cherokee life before ‘Green Grow The Lilacs’ that ‘Oklahoma!’ adapted. The original play had much more clarity about the conflict over best use of the land - arable or pastoral - between ‘The Farmer and the Cowman’. Crucially too, the fact that both parties were battling over land that was Cherokee homeland was in the play. “Indian Territory” is how the scene is described by Riggs. If the Farmers and the Cowman ultimately hoedown their way to a cosy handshake, it’s at the expense of the ‘Indian’ people. Riggs’ outsider was Jeeter Fry - changed to Jud Fry by Hammerstein - though Riggs didn’t write Jeeter as Cherokee. You’d think he would in order to show the expulsion of the Cherokee nation, but in his play the mainstream characters associate more with ‘Indian blood’ than the Federal United States. Riggs' Aunt Eller says of the USA, “you’d think us people out here lived in the United States! It’s jist a furrin country to me”. Neighbours respond: “Why I’m jist plumb full of Indian blood myself.” “Me, too! And I c’n prove it!” In Rodgers and Hammerstein’s hands, it’s all normalised to a USA-lovin’ tale of American absorption and expansion, {Spoiler - click to view}
with a ritual rejection of the outsider. I found the revival a mix of ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’. ‘Not Enough’ - It’s very late (the final song) for us to realise that drawing up values for a “brand new state, aint that great” is what this is about. Is there anything more than that one line from a song? Certainly not enough for an audience to notice without research or a heavily-guiding programme note. The set suggests a community meeting hall where values of that new state might be thrashed out, but never names it. I’d have welcomed some added dialogue as a prologue, or simply leaflets handed out as part of the interactivity, showing voting options for ‘how we’re going to live’. Why go for the community hall if you’re not going to really exploit it? At the end, the locals get their first chance at administering justice, so that does work, but needs context in the build up for it to land with gravity. ‘Too much’ - the way everything was sexualised to the point of absurdity. Yet it does have the benefit of making Jud look no more sex-obsessed/perverted than the rest (less perhaps, at least he does his in private). {Spoiler - click to view}
So the injustice at driving him out is made more meaningful. Perhaps that’s ‘Spot On’ after all. So the injustice at driving him out is made more meaningful. Perhaps that’s ‘Spot On’ after all. ‘Too Much’ - does Rodgers and Hammerstein’s work deserve to be radicalised when it still falls short of reflecting the Indian experience of Lynn Riggs? It flatters Rodgers and Hammerstein into appearing the radicals they weren’t. Or…were they? |
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