This is not your grandparents’ OKLAHOMA. During intermission, I heard one woman ask another, “Is this the Oklahoma you remember?” and it’s certainly not. If you’ve ever found the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic musical boring or problematic, then this is the revival for you.
Warning: this is not your traditional version of OKLAHOMA!, and good riddance. Without changing a word of the book or lyrics, director Daniel Fish has created a revival of the 1943 musical that highlights different aspects of the material simply by changing the tone in which scenes are presented. The story has always been one of a community banding together against an outside, but that aspect of the show is usually buried in favor of the sunnier, romantic elements of the plot. Not so this time. While the show loses some of its oomph by no longer being presented in the round, as it was during its run on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre, there is still plenty to like even when presented in a traditional space like the Providence Performing Arts Center’s.
The national tour of Daniel Fish’s reimagined Oklahoma!, now playing at the Forrest Theatre, is Oklahoma! like you’ve never seen it. Darker and sultrier than you ever imagined Rodgers & Hammerstein’s magnum opus could be, this production makes an almost 80-year-old musical feel not only modern, but dangerous.