Cheap Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (London Stage Revival) (DVD) (Trevor Nunn) Price

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Customer Reviews of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (London Stage Revival)

Frankly, I bought this DVD for one reason--I was curious to hear if Hugh Jackman could sing. Let's face it--he's gorgeous to watch (and my husband gets jealous every time I say that, LOL), but I had a great deal of trouble imagining him in this rough-and-tumble cowboy role. In fact, the thought of "Oklahoma" on the London stage was a concept I had trouble accepting intellectually.

Boy, was I wrong.... :)

I agree 100% with Mary Rodgers. If you only have the chance to see one performance of "Oklahoma" in your lifetime, THIS is the one to see.

Shuler Hensley is magnificent as Jud Fry, and well deserving of all the awards he received. Jimmy Johnson and Vicki Simon make a delightful pair as Will Parker and the "I can't say no" Ado Annie. Maureen Lipman provides the heart of the family with her performance as Aunt Eller.

But Jackman and Josefina Gabrielle...well, there are no words. They weren't the typical clean-and-polished Curly and Laurey that we're so used to seeing. Laurey was barefoot and wearing pants! Curly *looked* like a cowhand who had just come off the range. They were...well, real. Genuine. Laurey had doubts about marrying a cowboy; Curly had doubts about giving up his life in the saddle and settling down as a farmer. Curly was *nervous* when he stumbled through his proposal...and Laurey *still* had doubts about accepting.

Again, the only word that comes to mind...real. Human. True human emotions. And, amazingly, not a British/Australian accent anywhere to mar the perfection.

Oh, and did I mention that Hugh Jackman was gorgeous?? :)

Yes, some of the set changes are a bit confusing when they cut in the audience reactions. But I was so caught up with the presentation that the distraction was a minor inconvenience at worst.

If you're trying to make a choice between this version and the 1955 movie...get both. But get this one first :)

Yes...Hugh Jackman can most definitely sing. And did I mention that he's...well, you get the idea :)

Absolutely THE BEST
I'm a longtime fan of Rogers & Hammerstein ... Lord knows my mom made me memorize most of the parts of most of the musicals and perform them for all our guests. I've followed perhaps every version of each of these that have been recorded and NONE surpass this version of Oklahoma. I was completely unaware it existed until a few weeks ago. I had just been blown away by the incredible performance Hugh Jackman gives in the current production of BOY FROM OZ. Coming home from NYC, I perused what other musicals he might have done and found this one. I ordered it immediately and have watched it over and over. What a joy!! Now I feel that the one improvement to the movie CHICAGO would have been casting Hugh Jackman in the role that went to Richard Gere ... then that role too would have won an Academy Award. It is a true pleasure to be living at a time when there is an actor capable of bringing new life to Rogers & Hammerstein. There has never been a better Curly. Jackman brings highest quality to everything he appears in, perhaps the finest performer of our era! This is an exceptional production and will be on my gift list to ALL MY FRIENDS this year.

The classic American musical gets the Trevor Nunn touch
Every time I watch a version of "Oklahoma!" there are two conclusions that I always reach. The first is that there is no greater chorus in the American musical than the title song from this show. No wonder as soon as it is finished the cast does it again and then for good measure does it at the end of the curtain calls. It always gives me chills when they do the big finish and it occurs to me that the song "Oklahoma" is our secular equivalent of "The Hallelujah Chorus." The second inevitable thought is that Shirley Jones had a truly great singing voice, perfect for musical theater. Any one who plays Laurey Williams is going to suffer in comparison when it comes to the singing (the test case remains the same: the end of the reprise of "People Will Say We're in Love."

That is not to say that this 1999 London Stage Revival of the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical is not impressive. Director Trevor Nunn restores the full text and you can see why Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were both interested in turning Lynn Riggs' play "Green Grow the Lilacs" into a musical. It might seem strange to say so, but one of the strengths of this production is that the acting is so solid. The comic relief characters like Will Parker (Jimmy Johnston), Ado Annie (Vicki Simon), and Ali Hakim (Peter Polycarpou), are given more gravity without sacrificing the humor. Of course, part of this is because the show was not really filmed before a live audience, even though there are applause and shots of the audience from the stage at the end of most of the musical numbers. So never is heard a laugh from the audience during the proceedings, which necessarily gives more weight to the characters and the action.

Hugh Jackman is the main attraction as Curly McLain, mostly because fans have problems believing this is the guy who plays Wolverine in the "X-Men" movies, although having just won the 2004 Theater Wings Best Actor in a Musical Tony Award for portraying singer Peter Allen in the Broadway version of "The Boy From Oz" should establish his bona fides in this regard. Josefina Gabrielle plays Laurey Williams as more of a tomboy, and if her singing is solid but unspectacular, her acting and dancing bring some new dimensions to the character as well. The dream ballet has the novelty of being the first major production in which Curly and Laurey do their own dancing. There are those who do not care for the sequence on principle, but having it here as the end of the first act makes for effective foreshadowing.

It is hard to think there could ever be a bad Aunt Eller, and Maureen Lipman shows how well the role can work when it is underplayed. But I think the standout performer here has to be Shuler Hensley as Jud Fry (Hensley played the Frankenstein Monster to Jackman's vampire hunter in "Van Helsing" this summer). The character is the villain and he never seems to quite work in most of the version of "Oklahoma!" I have seen. But Hensley brings a subtlety to the role that really makes it work. You get a sense of how he is dangerous without him being overtly threatening; in other words, you can understand why Laurie would consider him, even if only for a moment. Having such a strong performer in that role really elevates the show.

"Oklahoma!" holds up really well, provided you are open to what we would not consider to be an old-fashioned musical (anything by Rodgers & Hammerstein and/or before Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber), and Nunn deserves a lot of the credit for crafting this production. The only serious complaint with the DVD is that all we have on the Bonus Disc is a 24-minute featurette on the production. While that has its moments (the Rodgers & Hammerstein people are actually puzzled as to why Nunn wants to do the show, as if the British have no understanding or respect for the classics) it is hard to believe they could not fit it on the other disc. In comparison, the "Mystic River: Bonus Disc" has 189 minutes of material.