Oklahoma! Where the winds come sweeping down the plains…

Pre-statehood Oklahoma inspired the theatrical landscape of this country after it became the 46th state of the union. Its expansive territorial plains were the setting for one of the most ambitious musicals of all times. Oklahoma!

The award-winning musical comedy/love story has a history of firsts to its credit. The first collaboration between two of theatre’s most popular composers – Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II – this Pulitzer Prize-winning musical comedy was the first musical to have its entire score recorded with the original cast. It was also among the first musicals to bring together three important theatrical elements: plot, music and dance to move along the storyline.

A legendary production based upon the play “Green Grow the Lilacs” Oklahoma! explores the rivalry between farmers and cowboys and the romantic follies and successes of pioneers who settled the south central region of this country in 1907. Those were rough times for tough people who chose to make their lives in Indian country along this major cattle drive route.

“My mother was the sort of person who wouldn’t use any painkiller, even when she had dentistry work. When she was 89-years old she took a fall and landed in a prickly pear cactus. I helped her by pulling out all the cactus needles. She didn’t wince; she didn’t blink or show any kind of reaction as I pull each of the needles out. And I asked her ‘doesn’t this hurt?’ she retorted ‘of course it hurts.’ Now that’s Oklahoma spirit,” said Doug Adamz, a Marin musician with Oklahoma roots whose family photo could serve as a model for the play’s cast. 

Oklahoma!, the longest running musical of its day (1943) with a run of more than 2200 performances, captured that spirit in songs like “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin” and “The Surrey with the Fringe of Top”, and with characters like the Curly (cowboy), Aunt Eller (farmer) and Andrew “Paw” Carnes (father).

Today, almost sixty years after it first opened, that spirit continues to be celebrated. Locally it’s on stage now for all to see at Sonoma State University’s Evert B. Person Theatre through February 19. In this short run, Sonoma State University School of Performing Arts is doing its part to sustain “a very good musical,” according to 1943 New York Times Review Critic Lewis Nichols who suggested that the play “could be called a folk operetta.”

Under the adept musical direction of Lynne Morrow, expressionistic stage wizardry of Adrian Elfenbaum, and the choreographic insights of Nancy Lyons, the student cast and crew keep the play’s impressive reputation alive.

The cat and mouse tension between Curly (Zachary Hasbany) and Jud (Jon Ostlund) as they vie to win Laurey’s (Vanessa Begley) heart, the playful power of Ali Hakim the peddler (Christopher Gonzalez) who likens marriage to a death sentence, and the ethereal dream dance sequence that imbues this production with a solid kinetic understanding of human desires and dreams, all deliver upon their promises to convey the intricate harshness and beauty of survival on the Great Plains. Such an American story just doesn’t grow old.

For more information about this Sonoma State University Departments of Music and Theatre Arts & Dance co-production, visit: http://ow.ly/90VXj.