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Background

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

Richard Rodgers was the grandson of a Jewish immigrant from Russia who changed the family name Rogozinsky to Abraham, though keeping the first name Morris. His son William changed the family name again, to Rodgers, possibly to gain admission to a Christian sectarian medical school. William Rodgers became a physician, and married Mamie Levy. Although they lived in New York City, Dr. Rodgers took his wife in the summer to Arverne, Long Island and there their son Richard was born on June 28, 1902. Richard was the second son; his elder brother Mortimer became a physician.

Richard was both interested in and wrote music from an early age. When Richard was 14, Mortimer Rodgers, then a student at Columbia University, took him to the school's Varsity Show, where among the performers was Columbia student Lorenz Hart, and where he also met another student there, Oscar Hammerstein II. Hammerstein was from a well-known family known for theatre management; his grandfather was the impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. William Hammerstein, son of one Oscar and father of the other, was a theatre manager, who married Alice Nimmo. Although William Hammerstein's professional life as manager of a theatre featuring vaudeville was often lively, Oscar (born July 12, 1895) and younger brother Reginald grew up in a conservative, well-ordered household.

In the years after their meeting, Rodgers grew close to Hart, and the collaborated musically, as Rodgers matured and attended Columbia himself.

Frederick Nolan, in his volume on Rodgers and Hammerstein, described Hart as "unquestionably the most brilliant lyric writer of his own or, indeed, any succeeding generation." Rodgers once described his relationship with Hart, "A partner, a best friend, and a constant source of irritation."Even in the early years of their relationship, Rodgers sometimes had difficulty getting Hart to complete the words. Hart enjoyed nightlife, and hosted all-night parties at his apartment. Rodgers, on the other hand, was an early riser and conscientious worker. Nevertheless, the partnership proved highly productive, and in some seasons two or three of the thirty-odd Broadway musicals would be by Rodgers and Hart.

The Theatre Guild and Green Grow the Lilacs

The Theatre Guild was founded from remnants of the Washington Square Players in 1918. Its aim was to bring a higher class of theatrical production to audiences than the usual Broadway fare. Its chief founder, Lawrence Langner worked closely with co-executive director Theresa Helburn to bring such plays before the public, generally presented with ensemble casts, lacking stars, which they stated increased artistic integrity but which also kept costs down. It was supported by subscribers, who were guaranteed six performances, presented both in New York, and on tour in certain cities. In good years, subscriptions would keep any Guild production alive for six weeks. According to theatre writer Max Wilk, "the Guild introduced a theatre based in literacy, talent, and intellect".

The Guild's productions were originally presented at the Garrick Theatre, but in 1925, it moved into its own facility on West Fifty-Second Street. Through the talents and drive of Langner and Helburn, it forged key alliances. It worked closely with the Shubert Organization – Guild productions popular enough to need to find new premises to continue their runs often found them in Shubert theaters. The Guild would often have tryout performances of new shows before the New York opening; these often took place in New Haven and Boston, often in Shubert facilities. Another agreement which helped give the Guild a reputation as the foremost repertory theater in New York was with George Bernard Shaw to give the American premieres of his new shows. It presented other plays by non-American writers; in 1921 giving Ferenc Molnár's Liliom. Stung by criticism they were neglecting American playwrights, they gave works by Eugene O'Neill and Philip Barry.

The Depression brought not only diminished audiences, but also fractured the Guild, with many of its mainstay playwrights joining other groups. Nevertheless, it continued to present plays, and accepted for its 1931 season a play Lynn Riggs. The playwright had been born in 1899 in Indian Territory, that would in 1907 become part of the state of Oklahoma. Riggs was raised there, the son of a cowboy who became a farmer. Once grown, he abandoned the farm, but could not find steady work. He turned to writing, first poetry, then playwriting, then tried to combine the two. His attempts met with rejection when submitted. In 1930, his play, Roadside, was produced, but flopped. It won him a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in Paris, he wrote Green Grow the Lilacs.

Riggs's Roadside had been noticed by the Guild, and they worked with him on Green Grow the Lilacs, which was presented as part of the Guild's 1930–31 season. It had its New York premiere at the Guild Theatre on January 26, 1931, running for 64 performances, which was considered respectable. It had a reasonably successful tour. Over the following decade, it remained Riggs's best-known play, and sparked some local productions. The Guild rejected many of Riggs's subsequent submissions, and he spent time in Hollywood working as a screenwriter.

Plot of Green Grow the Lilacs

Set in Indian Territory in 1900, the plot of Green Grow the Lilacs broadly parallels that of Oklahoma!, and the initial scene, with Curly McClain, Laurey Williams, and Aunt Eller Murphy, proceeds much as in Oklahoma!, even to the fringe-topped surrey. In the second scene, in Laurey's room with Aunt Eller, it develops that Laurey is going to the play with the farmhand (named Jeeter Fry in this version) because she fears he will set the house afire if she rejects him. Ado Annie Carnes comes in, seeking transportation to the party; she is courted by a Syrian "Pedler". Laurey invited Annie to ride with her and Jeeter to the party, and her consideration of the Pedler's wares is interrupted by a gunshot from the direction of the smokehouse, where Curly has gone to confront Jeter. The third scene is what took place in the smokehouse. The confrontation between the two men proceeds much as in the musical, with Curly suggesting Jeeter hang himself and then people will sing sadly for him. Once Curly's talk turns to Laurey, though, an enraged Jeeter grabs a gun and fires past Curly. The confrontation is defused by the arrival of the others, and Jeeter considers the purchase of a knife from the Pedler, while Curly mulls over a set of brass knuckles.

Scene Four is at Old Man Peck's part; Jeeter is aggrieved because he was not allowed to be alone with Laurey on the ride. When he is allowed to be alone with her, he soon grabs her and tries to disrobe her. She fights him off and fires him, and he goes away. After the party, she stops Curly from leaving and asks him to protect her, fearing retaliation from Jeeter. He is reassuring, and the two soon declare their love for each other. When the party crowd returns, they divine the couple's intent to marry. The fifth scene, in a hayfield, begins with Curly and Laurey having just returned from being married in town, and unsuccessfully attempting to evade the shivoree, good natured hazing and bawdy serenading of the bridal couple. The festivities are interrupted by fire, for Jeeter has ignited the haystacks and rushes at Curly first with a torch and then with a knife. In their struggle, Jeeter trips and falls on his own knife, fatally wounded. The sixth and final scene is in Laurey's front room, a few nights later. The jailed Curly will soon face trial for murder. Annie and Eller comfort Laurey –but Aunt Eller, who has seen much death in her time, tells Laurey that this, like all troubles, must be endured. Curly comes in, escaped from jail to reassure Laurey. Peck and others arrive, deputized to return Curly to jail. Eller successfully argues that there is no need to bring Curly back until the hearing in the morning, and he should be allowed a night with his bride before he faces trial for his life. The men disperse, and Curly sings from the bedroom, to Eller's scandalized delight.

Creation

Out-of-town tryouts

At the time, it was usual for musicals and plays to tryout in New Haven's Schubert Theatre, where shows came to set up beginning on Monday, give three evening and one matinee performances between Thursday and Saturday, and then to depart on Sunday in advance of the next show.

According to Wilk,

A valuable lesson was being learned here in this split-week as the troupe prepared to leave New Haven to go to Boston. Nothing in Away We Go!—song, ballad, or solo—would be retained in the final version unless it was totally and deeply integrated with the text of the libretto, and most important, unless it contributed something valid to the characters Hammerstein and Rodgers had extrapolated from Green Grow the Lilacs.

Opening night: March 31, 1943

According to Wilk,

After this night, with this one performance of Oklahoma!, the American musical theatre would never be the same. Farewell to those years of European-based operettas, to the Ziegfield extravaganzas, to claptrap books designed for star performers, and to rowdy semiburlesque shows. By 11:20PM on this night they were all history.

Synopsis

Songs

Reception and success

Themes and legacy

Commiunity and patriotism

Bruce Kirle, in his journal article on Oklahoma focuses on the conflict between the farmers and the cowmen, resolved, for plot purposes anyway, by the admission of Oklahoma as a state. He suggests that this reconciliation parallels that of the interventionist and isolationist (for example, "America Firsters"), uniting after Pearl Harbor to face the threat of the Axis Powers.

Celebration of the land

The title song of Oklahoma! is sung to the land

Although Ali Hakim is to some extent an outsider in the community, he is capable of joining it, and to some extent assimilating. Jud Fry, though, is an outsider lacking that ability. Not only does his smokehouse residence isolate him on the Williams farm, his inability to sing with or to anyone (excepting Curly in "Poor Jud is Dead") isolates him within Oklahoma!. He is not as violent as the Jeeter Fry of the play, who attempts to kill his rival and the woman who rejected him by burning them in her house. Nevertheless, according to Carter, "Jud's eventual death does not even merit the decency of a proper trial."

Legacy

According to Hischak, "not only is Oklahoma! the most important of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals it is also the single most influential work int eh American musical theatre. In fact, the history of the Broadway musical can accurately be divided into what came before Oklahoma! and what came after it. It is the first fully integrated musical play, and its blending of song, character, plot and even dance would serve as the model for Broadway shows for decades". Mordden notes, "Revivals [of Oklahoma! ] are perennial. The very title of the show has become a summoning term meaning 'The work that changed the form.'

Music

Notes and references

Notes

References

Bibliography

Books

• Block, Geoffrey (ed.) The Richard Rodgers Reader. New York: Oxford University Press (US), 2006. ISBN 978-0-19-531343-7.
• Carter, Tim. Oklahoma!: The Making of an American Musical". New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN 978–0–300–10619–0.
• Fordin, Hugh. Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 1995 reprint of 1986 edition. ISBN 978-0-306-80668-1.
• Green, Stanley. Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 1980. ISBN 978-0-306-80113-6.
• Hischak, Thomas S. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. ISBN 978-0-313-34140-3.
• Hyland, William G. Richard Rodgers. New Haven,CT: Yale University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-300-07115-3.
• Riggs, Lynn. Green Grow the Lilacs. New York: Samuel French, Inc. 1958 reprint of 1931 original. ISBN 978–0–573–60962–6.
• Mordden, Ethan. Rodgers & Hammerstein. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992. ISBN 978-0-8109-1567-1.
• Mordden, Ethan. Beautiful Mornin': The Broadway Musical in the 1940s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0–19–512851–6.
• Nolan, Frederick. The Sound of Their Music: The Story of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Cambridge, Mass.: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2002. ISBN 978-1-55783-473-7.
• Riggs, Lynn. Green Grow the Lilacs. New York: Samuel French. undated. ISBN 978–0–573–60962–6.
• Rodgers, Richard and Hammerstein, Oscar. Six Plays by Rodgers and Hammerstein. New York: Random House, undated.
• Secrest, Meryle. Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers. Cambridge, Mass.: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2001. ISBN 978-1-55783-581-9.
• Wilk, Max. Overture and Finale: Rodgers and Hammerstein and the Creation of Their Two Greatest Hits. New York: Back State Books, 1999. ISBN 0–8230–8820–0.
• Wilk, Max. OK! The Story of Oklahoma!". New York: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2002 (revised edition; 1993 original publication). ISBN 1–55783–555–1.

Journals and other sources

• Nardin, James T. "Green grow the lyrics". The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 3, Number 2 (December, 1958), pp. 21–29. JSTOR 1124890.

• Most, Andrea. "'We Know We Belong to the Land': The Theatricality of Assimilation in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! ".

PMLA, Vol. 113, Number 1, (January, 1998), pp. 77-89. JSTOR 463410.

• Kirle, Bruce. "Reconciliation, resolution, and the political role of Oklahoma! in American consciousness". Theatre Journal. Vol. 55, Number 2 (May, 2003), pp. 251-274. JSTOR 25069231.