THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: Thursday, October 12, 1995 TAG: 9510120018 SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL TYPE: Theater Review SOURCE: BY MONTAGUE GAMMON III, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BREAK LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
``OKLAHOMA'' provided convincing proof that Commonwealth Musical Stage has earned a place in Hampton Roads' small group of high-quality professional theaters.
The team that producing director Jeff Meredith assembled for this show, especially designer George Hillow and choreographer Gwen Spear-Meng, gave an impressive and polished look to the work of a consistently strong cast.
That cast mixed pros in the leading roles with local performers in secondary and chorus parts. The quickest way to spot the locals was that they were giving lessons in graceful and polite scene-stealing to the apparently defenseless New Yorkers.
Quite apart from the pleasure of their high-quality acting, it was an insider's treat to watch the finesse with which Mary Christine Danner, Franklin D. Chenman and Bob Burchette practised their harmless but effective theatrical larceny.
This isn't to say the theatrical hired hands weren't worth watching. Roger Befeler had the innocent charm of Curly down pat, but more important than his acting was his strong, pleasant voice. Brett Cramp had the meatier, though less prominent, part of Will Parker. Enamored of Ado Annie, self-described as ``the girl who can't say no,'' Cramp's role offered more comic potential than did Befeler's.
Amy L. Hanstead gave Ado Annie a playfully innocent quality, some speech patterns reminiscent of Betty Boop and a funny hitch to her walk that rounded out this appealingly simple girl's character.
The performer to watch from this cast is Melissa Blake, as Curly's love interest, Laurey. Not only were her smile and presence utterly charming but also her voice had a sweet, controlled tone. She displayed splendid articulation and the ability to shape each word distinctly while maintaining a graceful continuity of phrase and line. Her singing turned the relatively unfamiliar, lilting ``Many a New Day'' into a high point, before she partnered with Befeler in ``People Will Say We're in Love.''
The ominous Jud Fry, rival to Curly for Laurey's attention, was played by Jeremy Folmer with all the menace one could ask for. Folmer showed what the term ``trouper'' means when he returned to the production on the last weekend with a broken elbow.
Hillow's set depicted with equal facility an all-American farmhouse, a hired man's grubby hovel and the wide open spaces of the American West. His lighting imparted the feel of a prairie morning as convincingly as it conjured a lurid dreamscape.
Spear-Meng devised dances for the men that were muscular and robust, and dances for the women that were vivacious and light-hearted. Her real masterpiece , and the high point of Hillow's lighting design, was a striking ballet.
In that dance, Laurey dreams of the difference between wholesome Curly, with whom she is having a spat, and menacing Jud. Under a garish sky shot through with red and orange, four women danced their jerky subjugation to the coarsely virile Jud.
It was a singularly compelling piece, bringing into focus the thematic undercurrent of ``Oklahoma,'' which is essentially a tale about coming of age. The Indian Territory matures into the state of Oklahoma, and begins the transition from free range to settled farms. Curly gives up being a cowboy to become a farmer. Laurey faces the doubts and fears of her own maturing sexuality; those concerns find vivid expression in Laurey's ballet.
Not everyone would agree with Meredith's staging of some musical numbers, in which a soloist seemed almost to be giving a recital, but it takes real wisdom for a director to stand back and let a classic like ``Oh, What a Beautiful Morning'' take the stage unhampered.
Meredith structures scenes that flow smoothly from one action to another, and from one scene to the next. His staging was all the better for being unobtrusive. He deserves credit for melding so many individual talents into a well-unified work.
Kathi Caplan was the musical director and the Virginia Beach Symphony Orchestra under David S. Kunkel accompanied the pro-duction. by CNB