Today it's an institution, but 'Oklahoma!' was once a big risk
Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic

Wednesday, February 2, 2005

Everything about this new musical was wrong.

The story was thin and hopelessly corny. The play on which it was based, "Green Grow the Lilacs," had been a flop. The financially strapped producer couldn't afford to build a proper set. The two collaborators, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, had never worked together before. And they were proposing to cap the first act with -- what? -- a "dream ballet?"

REVIEW
'Oklahoma!' not so sweet and innocent
Ruthe Stein, Chronicle Senior Writer

Friday, February 4, 2005

The production touring San Francisco is based on the Royal National Theatre's, only once removed. Nunn's assistant, Fred Hanson, directs, and Stroman's assistant, Ginger Thatcher, recreates the choreography. While the ballet number is as moving as in the London show, overall the version at the Orpheum isn't quite the beautiful evenin', or matinee, it was across the Atlantic.

'Oklahoma!' still fresh, decades later

By Pat Craig

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

'Oklahoma!" is much more than OK. It's one sly sexagenarian, more American than a bakery full of apple pies, and packing the emotional intensity of a Tulsa twister.

Oklahoma!
by PETER BRADSHAW for the Guardian

Very few films or plays can survive the stigma of having an exclamation mark after the title, but Fred Zinnemann's bigscreen version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, originally released in 1955, still has some breezy charm and robust American music, ... no red-blooded cinemagoer could fail to be affected, just a little, by that opening ground-level shot of the corn climbin' clear up to the sky, before Gordon MacRae sings Oh What A Beautiful Morning, clear as a bell.

published: August 25, 2006