Oklahoma! (2019 Broadway revival)

I am in NYC for a weekend and got a last-minute ticket for the Oklahoma! revival currently playing at the Circle in the Square. This is totally Nicole Cliffe's fault, because she kept talking it up on Twitter and her newsletter (often as "Fucklahoma," to some confusion). Going in, I knew only that she thought it was great, and that the second act started with a dance sequence, which is all I retained from the NY Times review. I did this deliberately and I'm glad of it.

I have pictures of the theater over on Google Photos. It's so intimate—and bright! The house lights stay on most of the time. The crockpots were hot, as labeled, because they served the audience chili out of them at intermission; and cast members leaned, jumped, and laid down on the tables. (I could never, but good for the people who could.) Unfortunately, the theater needs longer intermissions if it's only going to have eight stalls in the women's bathroom, and its seats are pretty narrow.

When I sat down, an elderly gentleman next to me asked something like, "So, you like Oklahoma!?" To which I responded, "I don't know, I haven't seen it yet." He told me that it was good, and specifically used the word "light."

Having checked the Wikipedia plot summary, the revival does modify the events of the finale to bump up the darkness, but even without that, I think it's really telling that the elderly white guy could call this "light." It is textually, unequivocally about a woman being stalked by someone who plans violence! (The woman is black in this production, and that's very deliberate.) There's a song where one character tells the second how great it would be if the second committed suicide! There's spoilers!

Anyway. Even as a first experience, this works well. The staging and lighting are really dynamic and thoughtful, the cast is all great, the music is of course ear-worm-inducing (apparently the arrangements are also new, which I wouldn't know). I'm pretty conflicted about the finale, but on the whole I recommend it. (There is a cast recording, obviously I haven't listened to it yet.)

And now, ( SPOILERS for both the story and this revival. )

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