Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 2, 1993 TAG: 9304020105
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TONY GABRIELE KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`OKLAHOMA!' BROKE THE BROADWAY MOLD
I am very fond of Broadway musicals. They're my favorite form of entertainment. To me, nothing beats the thrill I get when I settle in my theater seat, the orchestra tunes up, the lights dim and the producer comes on the P.A. system to tell you the star has laryngitis that night and can't perform.It's been a long time since I've been to a Broadway show, though, the reasons being that (a) they are located on Broadway, of all places, which is in New York, and here I am in Virginia, and (b) tickets cost about a skadillion dollars nowadays. So I listen a lot to Broadway show albums, where the star always shows up.
I bring this up because of all the hoopla over the upcoming 50th anniversary of the historic, landmark Broadway musical, "Oklahoma!" Well, maybe there hasn't been a whole lot of hoopla at your house. Trust me, though, this is a big cultural deal. Besides, it was either that or celebrate the 25th anniversary of Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" reaching No. 1 on the pop charts, and I didn't want to inflict that upon you.
"Oklahoma!" was indeed a historic musical that marked a whole lot of land. Before it, Broadway musicals followed a strict formula. In fact, they had only one plot. They were always set in a big mansion on Long Island and were about a rich boy falling in love with a girl his parents disapproved of. Although every once in a while, in a daringly dramatic change of pace, they would be about a rich girl falling in love with a boy her parents disapproved of.
These musicals managed to be entertaining because:
They had songs by Jerome Kern or the Gershwins.
They had choruses of gorgeous women dancing in what amounted to their underwear (sort of a precursor to MTV).
Sometimes the Marx Brothers would be in them.
"Oklahoma!" broke the mold (which was growing pretty thick on that old Long Island mansion plot) with these revolutionary developments:
The women stayed covered up in long gingham dresses.
One of the main characters got killed.
Act I contained a 45-minute seminar on quilting techniques.
That's right, you knowledgeable theater buffs, I did make that last item up. Still, audiences loved "Oklahoma!," even though the Marx Brothers weren't in it, and its creators Rodgers and Hammerstein went on to refine these dramatic advances, particularly the one regarding dead characters, in their subsequent masterpieces:
In "Carousel," the male star dies.
In "South Pacific," the young male lead dies.
In "The King and I," the young male lead AND the older male star both die.
People loved it. This was the Golden Age of the Broadway Musical, when its popularity spread far beyond New York. Major reasons for this were the big Broadway stars, like Ethel Merman, who sang so loud she could be heard several states away.
When Ethel Merman let loose on a Broadway stage, folks in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., could faintly hear, coming through the air from the East and penetrating the walls of their homes, "There's NO business like SHOW business . . . "
Nowadays, though, this musical tradition has faded. The biggest deal on Broadway recently was a musical whose big attraction was a helicopter landing on stage. Shucks, we can see that any day at the airport.
So join me in hailing "Oklahoma!," undoubtedly the best musical ever named after a state. Especially since my own idea for a musical named "Connecticut!," featuring a chorus of dancing insurance agents, never got off the ground.
Tony Gabriele is a columnist for the Newport News Daily Press.