Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma!
revolutionised musical theatre. Oklahoma! was the first
musical that integrated songs, lyrics, and dance with the dramatic
action of the play. Both song and dance were used to reveal a
character’s emotions or to move the plot forward.
Although Rodgers and Hammerstein were big Broadway names with
their partners Lorenz Hart and Jerome Kern, they had never
worked
together before. They had real trouble selling the show - the
backers could see no interest in a show with no star names
that
tells the simple tale of a young girl’s attraction to
two men and where the burning question was who would take
her
to the local social. Nor did its original title Away We
Go inspire confidence. A critic at the out-of-town previews
summed it up ‘No jokes, no girls, no hope’.
Renamed Oklahoma! (the exclamation mark was a last
minute thought and the poor press department was up all night
inserting 4,000 exclamation marks into 1000 press releases before
they could announce the show) it opened on Broadway in 1943
and was an immediate smash hit.
Choreographer Agnes de Mille created a dream ballet at the
end of the first act which reveals the heroine’s state
of confusion in her attraction to both the honest, simple Curly
and the dangerous, unstable Jud Fry. Like the songs, the dance
now created an emotional subtext to the story and was completely
integrated into the plot.
Oklahoma! opened in London in 1947, again with a cast
of unknowns. Curly was played by Harold Keel, who, as Howard
Keel, was to star in some of the most famous MGM musicals of
the 1950s, including Kiss Me Kate, Calamity Jane
and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The show was
an immediate hit. To grey, post-war London it brought energy,
youth
and a feeling of boundless optimism. It smashed Chu Chin Chow’s 20
year long-run record.
The Great American Musical
