Review Roundup: Revamped OKLAHOMA! at The Bard SummerScape Festival

A new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's OKLAHOMA! opened Thursday at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, directed by Daniel Fish.

Let's see what the critics had to say:

Ben Brantley, NY Times: "Re-meeting the population of "Oklahoma!" - which keeps the performers in highly intimate proximity to the audience, seated at long refectory tables around the central playing area - feels like finally settling down for a chin-wag with people you thought you'd known for ages but had never spent one-on-one time with. As portrayed by a cast that includes Damon Daunno and Amber Gray as a sparking pair of leading lovers, and a compellingly pragmatic Mary Testa as the prairie dowager Aunt Eller, they turn out to be less wholesome and adorable than you remembered, but also a lot more interesting."

Stage Buddy: In Fish's interpretation, the people onstage aren't merely characters but ghosts conjured by campfire storytelling, all bursting to life with Rodgers' melodies. The exceptional ensemble led by Daunno and Gray, thrives in this revision, which grants traditionally one-note characters with souls all their own. Aunt Eller for instance, goes from being a wise older woman, to embodying the larger-than-life traits Testa brings to her performances, she's no Auntie Mame, but we know that there's more going on in her life whenever she's not dispensing wise advice.

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