3:50pm Saturday 27th June 2009
By Ian Murray
CONSIDERING it is such a staple of the theatre, including countless amateur dramatic productions, I had never realised quite how much sexual frustration is evident in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical.
Strip away the tremendous score, the “perty” Western accents, the cowboy versus the farmer tensions, and the fact anyone can get excited over a Surrey with or without a fringe on top, and what you have is a heap load of young men and women with more or less one thing on their mind.
True, this only becomes over obvious when the Oklahoma girls drop their long skirts to dance rather provocatively in just their bloomers. But there’s a definite and sometimes dark theme of carnal excitement and not a little danger in director John Doyle’s interpretation that opened at Chichester this week.
Doyle has chosen to set the story of the battle to win the heart of beautiful but feisty farmer’s girl Laurey on a bare stage with just simple fabric curtains to create the backdrop of the huge, featureless territory of Oklahoma itself.
Curly, the hero of the drama, handsome, kind, clever, is played by Michael Xavier and has the matinee idol looks and singing voice to ensure any amount of swooning from the backwoods girls. His rival Judd, dark, brooding, obsessed and violent, is played with menaces by the superb Craige Els.
Leila Benn Harris is the wilful Laurey who plays a dangerous game in pitting her love rivals against each other in a town where guns and knives are common place.
A lighter, less threatening rivalry is also played out between Michael Rouse as the acrobatic Will Parker and Michael Matus as Ali Hakim, a suitably slippery travelling peddler. Their love interest is the tremendous Natalie Casey (Two Pints of Lager) who as Ado-Annie flirts her way through just about every scene. Her rendition of I’m Just A Girl Who Cain’t Say No rightly brings the house down.
And it is the musical numbers that still steal the show: Oh What A Beautiful Morning, The Surrey With The Fringe On Top, People Will Say We're In Love and Oklahoma!
This is Chichester’s big musical of the festival season. Lasso a ticket if you can.
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