Staff Pick: Most Memorable Theater of 2019

Oklahoma! (Photo: Paula Court)

26 December 2019 ∙ Originally published in Exeunt NYC

(Presented below is my excerpt from a larger staff piece)

Oklahoma!

The only things I knew about Oklahoma! were that it essentially defined what we currently think of as ‘musical theater’ and that its original 1943 run had WWII servicemen lining up for Broadway tickets (the Village People-ness of it all!). It sounded dusty. In sweeps Daniel Fish’s iconoclastic production and, suddenly, bright, golden hazes on meadows are all I can think about. There were fewer pleasures this year than hearing (and, uh, seeing) Damon Daunno turn “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” into a veritable panty-dropper, or seeing a charming Ali Stroker turn “I Cain’t Say No”––easily the most insufferable song in the American canon––into a foot-stompin’ hoe anthem. Or being made to rethink the entire concept of patriotism as the title song became a hellish hymn to nationalism. May we be in for a decade filled with more of this kind of ground-up reinvestigation of what we thought we knew, and of serving chili and cornbread at intermission. (Juan A. Ramirez)