OKLAHOMA! To 29 August.
Chichester.
OKLAHOMA!
music by Richard Rodgers book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein based on Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs.
Chichester Festival Theatre in rep to 29 August 2009.
2.30pm 26, 30 July, 8, 13, 19, 27, 29 Aug.
3pm 23 Aug.
7.30pm 24, 25, 29-31 July, 3,4, 8, 12-14, 19-21, 24, 27, 29 Aug.
Audio-described 24 July, 25 July 2pm.
Runs 2hr 35min One interval.
TICKETS: 01243 781312.
www.cft.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 July.
Slightly stifled in the big moments, but the corn’s kept well in check.
“…and the land we belong to is grand,” chorus the Oklahomers towards the end of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical. Not here, it isn’t. Dry earth backed by two sheets that might represent greyish clouds, while giving a sense it’s always washday makes for an unforgiving look.
Which may be the point. Chichester’s Artistic Director Jonathan Church has the knack of artful programme pairings, and Oklahoma! runs in tandem with The Grapes of Wrath, which shows unemployed families moving west during the Depression, three decades on. Though life here is no bucket of roses, either.
Maybe “The Farmer and the Cowman” should be friends, but as they stay in separate groups then face each other off at a head-butt’s distance, violence looms in John Doyle’s production. When, finally, there’s another head-to-head as agents of the law dispute over Curly’s fate after his involvement in Jud Fry’s death, the happy end demanded by public opinion overrides the demand for a trial. Just as Oklahoma’s about to join the United States, it creates a judicial faultline running right down to Guantanamo Bay.
Still, Jud had attacked Curly, and the death was possibly an accidental outcome. Yet earlier, the sympathetic Curly tried persuading Jud - in Craige Els’ performance clearly mentally vulnerable - to commit suicide.
The action’s framed by Louise Plowright’s beneficent Aunt Eller smiling near the audience contrasted by Jud (resurrected for the end), remote, surly and spilling apples over the stage. It marks-out the light and dark, through which Doyle provides dramatic depth to run alongside Richard Rodgers’ magnificent score.
It’s only in the ‘big’ moments there are limitations. The bare, raised stage inhibits group choreography, making the big set-pieces slightly underwhelming. But the way Leila Benn Harris imagines the surrey with its fringe as Curly asks her out, embarrassed reluctance being won over by excitement, indicated how carefully the action’s charted.
Add the strong singing, some extraordinary hoofing from Michael Rouse as besotted will Parker – cartwheeling across the stage and sliding to just the right point – and Michael Matus’s gleefully comic Persian fake and the show really is going-on grand.
Curly: Michael Xavier.
Aunt Eller: Louise Plowright.
Laurey: Leila Benn Harris.
Ike Skidmore: Julian Sims,
Slim: Sam Archer.
Will Parker: Michael Rouse.
Jud: Craige Els.
Ado Annie: Natalie Casey.
Ali Hakim: Michael Matus.
Gertie Cummings: Amy Ellen Richardson.
Andrew (Pop) Carnes: Alex Giannini.
Cord Elam: Tim Morgan.
Armina: Amanda Minihan.
Virginia: Kylie Anne Cruikshanks.
Vivienne: Melanie Cripps.
Billy-Joe: Leon Else.
Katy-Louise: Michelle Francis.
Fred: Matthew Gould.
Mike: Eugene McCoy.
Joe: Kristopher Mitchell.
John Joe Junior: Darragh O’Leary.
Kate: Laura Scott.
Ellen: Rebecca Sutherland.
Director: John Doyle.
Designer: David Farley.
Lighting: Tim Mitchell.
Sound: Matt McKenzie.
Orchestrator: Jonathan Tunick.
Musical Director: Catherine Jayes.
Choreographer: Nikki Woollaston.
Dialect coach: Julia Wilson-Dickson.
Dance Captain: Melanie Cripps.
Assistant musical director: Peter McCarthy.
Assistant choreographer: Jo Morris.
2009-07-26 12:35:19