The soundtrack of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” was the first soundtrack of a Broadway musical to be recorded and distributed on vinyl, in 1943.
Second-year master’s student Emily Dyer plays leading lady Laurey Williams in the IU Opera and Ballet Theater’s production of “Oklahoma!” She said the soundtrack was her grandparents’ generation’s pop culture.
Dyer said IU’s production brings out her character’s strengths, unlike previous productions that portrayed Laurey Williams as immature. Laurey is able to keep her strong, self-sufficient nature while still allowing herself to fall in love.
“It was one of the very first American musicals to become prominent because it was dealing with things like obsession and sexual awakening,” Dyer said. “It also has a strong female lead, which people hadn’t really experienced until the time it was written. Now that it’s standard rep, it still carries with it those undertones of being new.”
The musical remains a classic with an original-Broadway run of more than 2,000 shows after more than 50 years since its creation. Mitchell Jones, who plays Laurey’s love interest, Curly McLain, said this is due to the characters it portrays.
“It comes right after this very melodramatic style of Italian opera, and you can see the tail end of that era of music in parts of this, but they brought it back down to earth by picking a bunch of everyday people in Oklahoma to write a musical about,” Jones said. “It’s not about famous people. It’s about everyday people who are feeling things that are important.”
Jones said the audience won’t be able to leave the show without humming at least five of the songs.
Stage director Gabriel Barre said almost every song in the score is iconic in musical theater. The music has a swagger that evokes the Midwest, he said.
“They captured the flavor and essence of the environment beautifully in the music,” Barre said. “You can sense the trotting horses in the song ‘Surrey.’ You can feel the wide open plains in that classic song ‘Oklahoma.’ They have a way of tapping into the essence of what these people and places were about.”
The dance numbers that accompany the music add classic Rodgers-and-Hammerstein flair, but a 12-minute ballet section shows the duo’s willingness to break the Broadway rules, Barre said.
Seven Jacobs ballet students dance in the “dream ballet,” where Laurey confronts her Freudian fears of the two men in her life, Jud and Curly, Barre said. Laurey’s psychological journey and sexual awakening parallel the state of America in 1906.
“Lands like Indiana and Oklahoma were just being settled in many places,” Barre said. “We forget that people didn’t know what the future would hold and how fantastically developed and great our country would become, with all its flaws as well. Tapping into that pioneer spirit of these people who are inhabiting the play is really exciting to me.”
The dramatic conflicts portrayed in “Oklahoma!” make it so engaging because they make it human, Jones said.
“We’re not just on stage singing for you,” Jones said. “I hope it’s something that makes you think, look inside, relate and see what traits of these characters you like and can empathize with. If we do our job right, we can change lives doing what we’re doing.”
