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supercantaloupe · 5 years

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this oklahoma fucks

my thoughts on the oklahoma revival (6/8/19 matinee) under the cut!

this show. i was absolutely blown away. i see a lot of shows (one glance at my theater page will tell you that much...) and at this point it’s rare that i see something which i feel in my gut from start to finish how incredible it is, but, wow, oklahoma lives up to the hype. it’s 2 hours and 45 minutes plus a 15 minute intermission, and i swear i didn’t stop grinning or giggling for that entire 3 hours.

it’s also sometimes a rarity now for me to go into a show blind. i certainly was familiar with oklahoma before today -- i knew the basic storyline, i’d even heard some of the songs from this cast, and hell, the musical’s almost a century old (it basically founded the modern broadway musical!) -- but i didn’t know it very intimately going in. from the moment i entered that theater, though, i was enraptured.

the show has a comfortable feel to it, with its old-timey wild-west drawling dialect and a loveable-as-always rogers & hammerstein score, but it’s reimagined in a way that makes it feel both completely new and completely familiar at once. it’s an intimate theatrical experience, one i haven’t really felt since great comet took its final bows. i’ve always been a fan of intimate and innovative productions but this show really excelled. playing in the round is the perfect way to welcome an audience into your world on a personal level, but oklahoma takes it a step further. there isn’t even a shift in lighting from the beginning of the show; it looks the same from the momeny you walk in and sit down through the first two numbers. it’s a small detail but it really works wonders in creating a world that the audience feels a welcome part in from the get-go. and that’s not even mentioning the tables onstage, the crockpots full of chili, the table of yet-to-be-made cornbread (all of which gets to be enjoyed by the audience during intermission!). and the string band right there on stage! with pedal steel and mandolin and banjo! what better way to welcome your audience into your world than to incorporate real elements of americana: a barnyard hoedown, a cultural centerpiece in american mythos and identity. (plus, i’m always a sucker for country twang in my music and a band onstage. pit musicians never get enough love!)

and man oh man, the cast. they are all phenomenal. my selected and personal commendations go out to mary testa, whose aunt eller COMMANDED the room and oozed a lovable familial flavor; ali stroker, for her charming, bubbly, and completely endearing brand of wildness in her portrayal of ado annie; patrick vaill, for his deeply chilling performance as jud; rebecca naomi jones, for the surprisingly deep layers of thought and emotion she brings to her laurey; and to damon daunno, for his downright enchanting vocal performance, southern drawl, and ass-waggling swagger all the way to the drama of his more serious scenes, like in “poor jud is dead” and the wedding (dudes got raaaaange. just sayin.). i need a cast album immediately!

it needs to be mentioned how much personality and charm put into every aspect of each actor’s performances. the choreography was just wonderful, from the corn-shucking “many a new day” to curly and will prancing around the stage slapping their thighs (there’s a lot of chaps and a lot of ass wiggling in this show. make your peace with that right away.) to the delightful hoedown-style group dancing in “farmer and the cowman”. i’m absolutely delighted at how seamlessly integrated the wheelchair-bound ali stroker is in every aspect of choreography -- it’s skillful, it’s full of personality, it’s unique and fun to watch. really the only choreography (and really the only scene in general) that i failed to fully appreciate was the dream ballet: as cool as it was, i personally am just Not A Dancer in any shape or form and such an interpretive, almost contextless solo dance kind of flew over my head. i still appreciate the artistry and skill involved in it but i’m sure there are other people out there who got a lot more out of that scene than i did.

to take a moment to appreciate the more technical aspects of the show: firstly, i was impressed by the subtlety employed in the sound design. i’m pretty sure all the actors were all wearing body mics (pretty much standard practice nowadays), though they were either very hard or downright impossible to spy. (nice job to the costume and hair departments for concealing those even from audiences so close!) my theory is that the mics were placed higher up on the actors’ heads, effectively concealing them in their hair and distancing the mic from their mouths -- thereby lessening their ability to pic up the actor’s voices. in a huge, proscenium-style theater, that’d be a problem, but here, in a theater and a show where intimacy is the name of the game, that works. you still heard the actors’ voices from where they were onstage, not just pumped in from speakers (if they were at all!). effects were used sparingly but to great effect: i noticed even in the opening number the reverb effect used only at the ends of certain words or lines to evoke the echoing of a voice over the prairie, which i thought was a very nice touch. and in addition to body mics there were handheld and stage mics, which indeed functioned as handheld and stage mics, with a clear auditory difference between when the actors used them and when they didn’t. again, this built up the believability and intimacy of the world, as well as contributing another layer of coolness to certain scenes (like “poor jud is dead”, which is done almost entirely in the dark and almost entirely on one handheld mic between curly and jud. the upped volume and closeness evoked using the handheld mic brought the entire audience in that much closer into that small and intimate space of the smokehouse and heightened the tension masterfully.)

and, oh my god, the lighting. the biggest snub of the tonys this year is oklahoma not even getting a NOMINATION (atw turn on your location i just wanna talk). i mentioned before those house lights not changing from when you enter the theater through the first few numbers but when they do -- when curly and laurey lock eyes and really consider each other -- there’s a sudden and unexpected shift, going from the bright full house lights to dark everywhere, with the stage lit completely in a dreamlike green. and just as quickly as it came it goes, snapping back to those full house lights again. what a simple but very strong way to convey a message! the show also makes really great use of directional lighting, projection, and colored ambient lighting, with the latter i find particularly notable in the late part of the barn party scene when laurey has her encounters with jud and curly (with these interactions lit a cool and creepy red, mostly by the colored fairy lights strung from the ceiling among the streamers). also an effective surprise is this show’s use of blackouts, its use of complete darkness. i’ve seen a lot of shows but i’ve NEVER seen a show use a blackout like this before.

for example, in the scene leading up to “poor jud is dead”, when curly goes to talk to jud in the smokehouse, the lights suddenly cut out, entirely, like we’ve stepped into a dark and sordid little corner of the world, jud’s domain. the whole beginning of this scene is played ENTIRELY in the dark, with naught but the sound of the two men’s conversation to tell us what’s going on. it’s creepy as hell and so effective. and then, as curly sings, a projector comes on, shining onto the back wall of the theater, an extreme black-and-white closeup, first of jud, then of curly, and of the two of them together, literally being broadcast from a camera held right up then and there. and after the song, after the projection fades away, we get a single spotlight, a pinpoint of light streaming from above; it shines onto the table directly between the two men, illuminating that patch of space, casting an eerie glow on the scene. and then, finally, the end, when auntie eller walks in, and the lights fade up just a bit, like would realistically happen if someone cracked open the door in a dark room. everything about the lighting in this scene plays up the creepiness of jud, the unpredictability of his madness, it plays with the suspicion and nerves of the audience by literally depriving them of information in the form of visuals. it plays similarly to jud’s and laurey’s encounter in act ii, when the lights cut to complete black again as he kisses her. we can’t see them, but we hear everything: kissing. metal clinking. footsteps, retreating. and then, those red party lights fade in, just enough to see laurey retreat to the opposite end of the stage, just enough to see jud’s unbuckled belt and confused, angry expression.

yeah, this oklahoma doesn’t pull its punches when it comes to jud. they make it crystal fucking clear who he is and what he’s trying to do. the lights, the sound, the whole production works to this end. and it doesn’t pull its punches with its finale, either. those of you familiar with the original show know that jud shows up to the wedding with a knife, and after a skirmish with curly, ends up falling on it and dying. this oklahoma did something else: jud shows up, asking only for a kiss from the bride and to give a gift to the groom. inside the box he brings is a shiny pistol, thrust into curly’s hand and trained on jud, standing open and ready for death, a forced assisted suicide. and after several long, tense, silent seconds, curly pulls the trigger. (i actually wasn’t even sure if they were going to go that far, but, yeah, they did that.) and the blood that splatters both on jud’s shirt and on the faces and white wedding outfits of laurey and curly is copious, and raw. it stays there for the rest of the show, a reminder. the finale ultimo is no longer a happy, triumphant reprise of the title number. it’s sung, powerfully and communally, by everyone with dead-fucking-straight faces.

this isn’t your grandmother’s oklahoma, that’s for sure.

what it is is a fantastic new staging of one of the biggest, most familiar classic pieces of american theater ever written. it’s simultaneously a back-to-its-roots retelling and a refreshing new take of classic material. it manages to be fresh and nostalgic, old and contemporary, mythologized and contemporary all at once. it’s not quite a masterpiece, but it’s damn near close to it.

in short, i haven’t seen a show this good in a long time. if you get the chance, you should too. it’s not one you’ll want to miss.

#sasha reviews #sasha speaks #i wanna talk about me #oklahoma #broadway #THIS TURNED OUT SO FUCKING LONG LMAO ENJOY IF YOU ACTUALLY READ ALL OF IT #i had so much to say!! i had so many thoughts!! this didnt even cover everything!!#but the stuff i left out wasnt as relevant to a review #ALSO UH. SPOILERS FOR OKLAHOMA #if anyones into that #either if you care about spoiling the plot of a 75+ year old musical or this production specifically #big spoilers #i didnt even get to mention it because i didnt know where to fit it in but !! will + ado annie + ali are so fucking funny they have #some of the best interactions in this show #laurie and curly are so soft #will + ado annie + ali hakim are all completely fucking over the top all the time #and its a great foil to the drama wit hjud without being Too Much #i didnt even get to talk about all great lighting cues in this #GIVE THIS SHOW ITS RIGHTFULLY DESERVED TONY ATW YOU COWARDS #and there were some hilarious little details in the acting that i didnt get to mention either #like when will just fuckin laid down on a table and when ado annie took too much of a liking to ali hakim #he just sat right fuckin up with a crock pot between his legs and lifted up the lid and wafted the fucking steam around his crotch #god. the assless chaps he and curly wear emphasize the crotch and the ass so fucking much #theres a lot of cute and just-this-side-of-racy little touches to the acting that add to the charm and humor of everything #and. god.#i love this fucking show. alright.#oklahoma!#ok19

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peoniepoetals · 6 years

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@reya-writes - prompt contest - prompt #1

You know you’ve lived long enough once the people who have been with you for centuries start to disappear.

Faecelle was the first to go. She turned into an oak three months after her 263rd birthday. She had told them two weeks beforehand, laying on the grass behind Bryrice's cottage in the Lowlake Forest, her hands under her head as a pillow and her eyes closed.

"I'm going to turn into a tree soon," she had said with a smile.

The others had blinked and looked at each other.

"How soon?" Quedira asked.

"Very soon. Within weeks."

"Why?" Bryrice had ventured to ask.

Faecelle was quiet for a moment, and the others just watched as a soft breeze played with her bangs. "I think I'm ready," she then said.

A cloud passed overhead, blocking the sun, and in the changed light, Faecelle seemed a lot older.

"Alright," Rye said, "I suppose that's fair."

Over the weeks that followed, they stayed together. Their little family watched as, suddenly, wrinkles were etched into Faecelle's skin, her hair turned grey and then white, and her eyes seemed to become glassy. Her dark skin turned almost rough to the touch, until it was indistinguishable from bark. Then one morning, Faecelle rooted herself to the forest floor and became a tree with a smile on her face.

The others watched her go in silence. It seemed right.

Rye was the next one to go, but this time, it was not peaceful.

Not yet a hundred years later, a powerful beast raged over a town Rye was visiting, and afterwards Bryrice and Quedira heard that Rye had stepped into the fray and brought it to its knees. Before they were able to give it the killing blow, however, it had forced them into the bottom of a lake. The only comfort Bryrice and Quedira got was the knowledge that people had seen Rye pass out before they hit the water - instead of struggling and dying in pain, it had probably been like going to sleep. Rye had given one more gift to the world. The town remembered them as a hero.

So did Bryrice. So did Quedira.

Together, they had 500 more years. They were fine years, where they lived in the cottage in the forest and gave advice to wandering adventurers who came across them by accident. They had faded into the background of society long ago, and the stories that had been written about them had long since been classified as fiction. Most people who ended up in their home didn't know who they were talking to - what they had done, over the years. They just came for a warm meal, a drink, a basic bed. Bryrice and Quedira listened to their stories and their goals, and helped them on their way if they can. Bryrice gave one of her most prized possessions, the feather of a dire-owl, to one of the small druids that had a particularly beautiful story to tell.

After those 500 years, they suffered a loss neither of them had been expecting: Quedira's son, Gorhin, had died suddenly, and left his wife and five children bereft. It was a blow in many ways. Quedira mourned her son deeply, and decided to move back to her family to help raise her grandchildren, knowing that Gorhin's wife Keira was extremely distraught and would need at least twenty years to get back on her feet.

She promised to come back, but she never got the chance. An illness swept through the area where the small family lived and took the lives of all but one. Quedi, the youngest of the bunch, lived with Bryrice for another 50 years. She tried her best to soothe the young girl, and taught her the ways of the creatures in the forest, how to find them, how to hunt them, which ones to honour and which to kill. She became quite good in her own time, and before long she left on her own adventure, the legagy of Quedira, The Call of the Wild, a secret she would keep for a long time.

Bryrice was left alone. She stayed there, in her cottage, for a hundred more years. Two hundred more years. Three hundred...

Then the biggest loss hit.

A necromancer, who reminded her so much of Fallar, their first and most despised foe, took control of the Lowlakes and brought back their dead. She started seeing apparitions, some good, some bad, and then Rye was on her doorstep again - translucent, hardly lucid, a mere wisp of consciousness in a body that couldn't fully exist.

They had come to Bryrice's cottage on instinct, they said, although they didn't know much of who they were, and before two months were over, they had just control over their own being entirely and devolved into a mindless creature who sought to harm as many as they could.

Bryrice went into the forest and made an arrow of elk and moss. She took out her old, worn bow, and she shot her friend in the chest. Rye turned into sludge on the forest floor, a horrid, gross substance that smelled like rotting seaweed and gas.

For a moment, Bryrice didn't know what to do with it. Eventually, she collected some of Faecelle's leaves and covered Rye with it. Something about the way that her family had returned to the Earth started to be depressing instead of comforting. Like they were really gone, and insignificant, somehow. It didn't matter who they had been - now they were drab and an oak. That's all.

It was about that time that Bryrice started to consider what she wanted to be after she died. How she wanted to decay.

A long time ago they had decided that their bodies had to be destroyed. Apparitions aside, none of their small little family wanted to be brougth back in a more substantial form. What happened to Rye had been unfortunate. Bryrice couldn't let the same happen to herself. And the thought of her ashes being used in a necromantic ritual 400 years from now made her shiver. Nothing could be left after she was gone. she would not be used like that, not after death. It wasn't right.

Eventually, she decided to visit an old friend.

She left her cottage for the last time, knowing that the moment had come for her to leave this planet on her own terms. She trudged back into the wilderness, through the Lowlakes, down the Marshland Hills, all the way to the Emerald Sea. There, she took a small boat and thought of Rye while she headed towards the deep sea trench where her family had once slain a terrible sea serpent.

They hadn't planned on destroying it, really - they were unexperienced, back then, funnily enough, and when the creature attacked they didn't know what else to do. It was only after they returned that they learned that when a sea serpent died, their decomposing body released certain smells that attracted countless other, smaller sea serpents, who would then battle for the old one's place in the eco system. There always had to be a sea serpent, it seemed. Always in the same place. It's why people didn't usually kill them.

The sea serpent Bryrice found at the place she had killed its brethren so many centuries before was far more powerful than the former one had been - of course, it had been around for a long time now. Its consciousness seemed to be more human-like, more communicative. When Bryrice cast a spell to speak with it, the creature had no trouble whatsoever understanding her.

"I've come to feed you," she said.

"And what have exactly have you brought me, earthchild?"

"Myself."

"You would give yourself as a sacrifice?"

"No. I'm not trying to start a cult. Those usually end up harming more people than they help, in my experience. Even the good ones."

"Then what?"

"I am just here to be destroyed."

The sea serpent was quiet for a moment and regarded her.

Bryrice noticed she was shaking. She wasn't entirely sure why. "You will gnaw my bones?" she asked, "You will drain me and leave nothing at all?"

"If you wish, earthchild, then yes."

"It is what your brethren promised me years ago."

Back then, it had been a threat. Now, it seemed like a soothing promise.

For a momeny, Bryrice thought that the sea serpent would argue. That they would ask her if she was sure. Instead, it was on her in a flash, its jaws around her tiny boat, and then there was darkness.

When she woke up, she was laying on the grass behind her cottage. When she opened her eyes, someone beside her leaned over her immediately.

"Ah," Faecelle said, "She's up!"

"I don't understand," Bryrice whispered, "I thought you were ready."

Faecelle nodded. "I was."

"Well, I wasn't." Rye dropped down next to them with a grumble, "I was in the prime of my life!"

"You've been saying that since you were 83, Rye," Quedira chuckled. She was staring in some kind of crystal intently.

"What's that?"

"What? Oh! That's Quedi." Quedira held out the crystal for Bryrice to look in, and, sure enough, there was young Quedi, not so young anymore, trying her best to create her own legacy.

Quedira smiled. "I've been keeping an eye on her."

Bryrice dropped back onto the grass and looked at the sky. It was pink, here. Not blue.

"Is that what we do, on this side?" she asked, "We just... look?"

"Oh no," Faecelle said, and she clasped Bryrice's hand, "We were just waiting for you. We were actually thinking of going back."

"I just got here."

"Here is not really anywhere."

"But where would we go?"

"Back," Rye repeated, "To see the world again. I feel like it's different now. Things keep changing, you know."

"I thought you wanted to leave," Bryrice told Faecelle again.

Faecelle shook her head. "Sometimes a body needs to become a tree. But a soul needs to be with their family."

"Isn't that why you came here?" Rye asked.

Quedira was still smiling at the crystal.

"Is that why you want to go back?" Bryrice asked, "For her?"

"It would be funny, wouldn't it?" Quedira chuckled, "If I could come to her for advice next?"

"I don't understand life and death," Bryrice said.

"Don't get too caught up on them." Faecelle smiled down at her. "There are far more important things about."

#short stories #prompt #reya's prompts #writeblr #original writing #original

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