Page 15
May 30, 2018
Photo By J enny g raham , o regon s hakesPeare F estival
Curly (Tatiana Wechsler, right) tries to entice Laurey (Royer Bockus) into accompa-
nying her to the box social in “Oklahoma,” a LGBTQ+ focus production now showing
through Oct. 27 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Rare Perspectives on Stage
C ontinued From P age 5
their absence from the spaces that do exist?
How do we model and live exclusiveness,
even while the spaces that exist are tainted
by oppression? OSF’S current production
of “Oklahoma!” lives into these questions
in a powerful way.
It’s an interesting choice of material,
this most American of musicals, which
feels about as straight and as white as they
come. But the truth is, LGBTQ+ people
and people of color exist in most commu-
nities, even if they are hidden or not al-
lowed to fully participate.
For more than two decades, director
Bill Rauch has held onto an ambition to
produce “Oklahoma!” in an LGBTQ+-fo-
cused way, with the four leads cast as
same-sex couples. It is the first Rogers and
Hammerstein collaboration and one of the
first true musical plays, where songs and
dance emerged from the dialogue. The
songs have permeated American culture
like no other in the canon.
And yet as a gay man who loved mu-
sicals, Rauch felt unrepresented and shut
out. His instinct to change that with this
specific musical feels like a powerful one:
to watch this playful, open-hearted, and
conventional love story, sentimentally set
in the American frontier, celebrating the
love of two gay couples; to hear them sing
these familiar songs – It communicates
that America is for the LGBTQ+ commu-
nity too. No holding back; sing it with full
voices and hearts.
I’ll acknowledge that, as musicals go,
“Oklahoma!” is not my favorite. There
are some unsolved problems in the play;
for example, a Persian peddler is comic
relief, an angry farmhand is treated as an
unredeemable pariah in this idyllic world
where “the farmer and the cowhand should
be friends,” and the plot is hardly subtle. I
gravitate toward original material that aims
to tell new stories in new ways.
And yet, this production helped me ap-
preciate how embodying old material in a
new way has a particular value in push-
ing us past our failures of imagination.
Hearing two female voices sing “People
Will Say We’re in Love” and watching
two men playfully negotiate their com-
mitment in “All ‘Er Nuthin” is strangely
moving. With a multiracial cast that in-
cludes a transgender Aunt Eller and char-
acters who present at several places along
the range of gender expression, the cast
lives, sings, and embodies community
more openly than we are used to seeing
-- infusing the pioneer setting with new
meaning. Part of what made “Oklaho-
ma!” so remarkable when it premiered
in 1943 was its focus on a pioneer story,
departing from the usual more urbane mu-
sical settings. This production presents a
new community of pioneers.
I expect there will be naysayers in every
audience; this production aims to move the
collective conversation, using a beloved
traditional vehicle. I was there at opening,
likely one of the most receptive audienc-
es the company will experience, and felt a
lot of negative energy from the couple to
my left. But the show is selling well, and
expanding our vision of inclusion -- due
in large part to Rauch’s vision and to a
company of artists who bring their whole
selves to the stage with each performance.
[Runs through Oct. 27.]
Darleen Ortega is a judge on the Ore-
gon Court of Appeals and the first woman
of color to serve in that capacity. Her mov-
ie review column Opinionated Judge ap-
pears regularly in The Portland Observer.
Find her movie blog at opinionatedjudge.
blogspot.com.