BWW Reviews: There's a Brand New State of OKLAHOMA! at Dutch Apple

OKLAHOMA! Probably the best-known of all the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, one of the best-known Broadway musicals of all time, and one of a small handful of musicals that truly celebrates dance. It's a show this author's had issues with based on the book - sexist, racist, name it - but if produced properly, the show still has its merits. Sometimes it has a lot of them.

Dean Sobon's directing it at Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre with Ford Haeuser choreographing, and it's worthy of a look on multiple counts.

First off, this production is a dance lover's dream. It's not Agnes DeMille's original choreography, but it's still great choreography, and it's all in there. Most productions trim the dance time - it's hard to get a stage full of dancers of the talent needed to pull the full dance routines off, but Dutch Apple's done it. Certainly the major ensemble numbers are all there, and they're spectacular - "Kansas City" and "The Farmer and the Plowman" are everything they should be, and then some. But it's the complete ballet in Laurey's dream sequence that is worth the visit in and of itself. It's rare to see it produced this fully and this spectacularly. Expect to be dazzled, and you won't be disappointed.

Then there's the matter of characterizations. The starring roles of Curly and Laurey tend to be cardboard, and it's easy to give in and to play them that way. But Christopher Lewis gives the audience a Curly who's not just a tremendous singer, but who actually has character. Kayleen Seidl's Laurey is more than pretty and confused about men; she's really conceivable as a very young woman holding down a farm.

The second couple is the more fully developed one in OKLAHOMA, and Ado Annie (Theresa Walker), her sometime would-be fiancé Will Parker (Will Leonard), and the wily peddler Ali Hakim (Craig Smith) all live up to the best expectations one has of their parts. Walker's Annie combines an active libido with bewildering innocence, Leonard's Will Parker has more determination than sense, and Craig Smith brings Ali Hakim the same comic delight he's brought to other roles on the Dutch Apple stage. It's always a treat to see the joy he infuses in his usually morally challenged characters, and Ali Hakim is no exception.

There are two other characters that make this show, and Sobon has reached into the book to pull out depths of character not usually seen. Aunt Eller is all too frequently a dirty-minded old lady who says the darndest things and runs the box lunch social; Lisa Coday makes her a woman who may be older, but who isn't dead, and who can both enjoy dancing with good-looking young men and run a business. Jud Fry, the catalyst for the drama of it, the villain of circumstances, is Justun Hart. Jud is usually veiled as mean, evil, and sinister, but we're to guess it from his threats and innuendo; Sobon and Hart have made Jud Fry a gritty, gripping character not so much of comedy ("Pore Jud is Daid") as of Freudian subconscious sexuality and barely controlled violence. It's a real relief to see Jud as a person, not just the clownish-but-dangerous figure of evil; when there's nearly a rape in this production, it's clearly nearly a rape, not just vulgarity and mishandling of Laurey's person.

That's the other great thing in this production - it is gritty, it is dirty, it is Oklahoma, with all its heat and dust and grime, all of its tilled soil and herded cattle and underlying anger between farmers and ranchers. It isn't prettied up, but underscored, by this production's song and dance; it isn't obscured, but put front and center. This is not your high school's production, with high jumping, flashes of petticoats, and a menacing guy for hero Curly to beat up; this production has a nearly gothic air of "what happens now, or next?" at every corner.

The one drawback to this tangible grit is that in a few places it's a bit too much. When Curly calls on Jud Fry in his bunkhouse, Jud is leering at a photograph in one hand that's by reference a French postcard of a nude woman; the gesture he's making with his hand on his thigh is clearly meant to intimate an action that shouldn't be seen on stage, but even the visual reference to it seems a bit much, especially as Justun Hart is an incredibly intense actor in this part. That his dark, hooded eyes seem to bulge when Jud is incensed or otherwise aroused adds to the depth of portrayal - but in the scene mentioned, his eyes also put it slightly over the top. It's not that it's not a likely scenario for the character, but it's not one that should seem so heavily indicated to the audience. At the same time, Hart is probably the most effective Jud Fry this author has seen in years. It's a privilege to watch him work, as much as it is to watch Lisa Coday's Aunt Eller churn butter as if that barrel's nearly full.

David Snyder's set design is particularly effective, and John P. White's costuming is excellent as ever, more realistic-feeling than most productions' western-themed clothing. JP Meyer, as music director, presides over one smokin' and ready-to-rumble pit band, able to move from comic to tender vocal accompaniment to leading, emphatic ballet score with totally fluid sound.

If you already like OKLAHOMA! this production may make you see the show a bit differently, especially if you have always simply labeled it as "nice musical theatre." Rodgers and Hammerstein almost always had a deeper train of thought than pretty stories and pretty music to their shows, and this production goes back to asking what R&H were thinking when they put it together. If you don't normally care for it, as this author doesn't, it's worth seeing to understand just what can be done with the show, and to see its more unpleasant themes actually handled rather than overlooked or obscured. It's the first production in a very long time that left this author with actual new feelings or thoughts about the content of the show, not just the quality of production. That's not something normally expected from a dinner theatre production, but it's a sign of quality theatre that stands on its own, with or without a meal attached. This is a production, like Dutch Apple's recent THE MUSIC MAN, that can really stand on its merits at any production house, that has unexpected depth and meaning for anyone ready to see it.

At Dutch Apple through August 1. Go for the dance, go for the acting, go to see a brand new state of OKLAHOMA. For tickets and information visit dutchapple.com or call 717-898-1900.

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