Monday
Oklahoma!
Our local high school performed Oklahoma! this last weekend. I didn't have any kids in the musical, but one good friend of the family's had the lead ("Curley"), plus we knew quite a few of the other kids, so we decided to go. The kids did an excellent job and it was an enjoyable evening, but I was struck by how weak the storyline was.
I guess Oklahoma! played a big role in the evolution of the musical. Not only was it Rodgers and Hammerstein's first collaboration, but it marked a transition on Broadway: Musicals had (apparently) been comical only, but through performances like Oklahoma!, they were developing into a full-blown performing arts medium. From Wikipedia: "This musical, building on the innovations of the earlier Show Boat, epitomized the development of the 'book musical,' a musical play where the songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals that are able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter."
I was also struck by the ribaldry. This was, what, early 1940s? It was the heyday of proper decorum in the mainline performing arts, but the musical features a loose young woman (Ado Annie Carnes). At first, I thought the woman just liked to kiss boys, but it became evidence that she was doing a lot more than just kissing. Between references to losing her "bloomers" when she's with the boys to her fiance saying that their first child better look like him to her father nearly forcing another man to marry Annie when he finds out what they've been up to, it's pretty evident that she was, well, a slut. Perhaps even more noteworthy, her behavior doesn't really seem to bother her young suitor (as long as she's faithful once they're married).
That kind of surprised me. I don't know if R&H reflect 1940s norms of morality, much less 1906 norms (the setting of Oklahoma!), but the idea that her suitor didn't seem to mind comes much closer to today's slutty standards than even the standards of my era (the 1980s, a time in which, despite loosening sexual norms, all my guy friends--hardly a batch of virgin choir boys--recoiled at the idea of getting serious with a girl who had gotten around). So were R&H properly reflecting a more relaxed attitude toward sex that prevailed during either of those time periods (which would run counter to everything we hear about pre-1960s culture) or were R&H undermining the culture or was it simply a funny sideline meant to reflect nothing except a girl who's so pretty that her dumb boyfriend doesn't care who she has slept with as long as he has exclusive rights eventually? I have no idea.
Do other people think of such things when they watch movies or musicals? I don't know enough about the performing arts to appreciate the intricacies of the performance itself, but I find the collateral "issues" surrounding most performances purty interesting.
One Response to “Monday”
February 11th, 2013 at 8:53 pm
It’s kind of shocking to hear some of the things said in 20′s, 30′s, 40′s and 50′s, whether it be plays, music, movies, etc. We have a certain view of how they were, but every now again something comes through that makes you question that view. One that really shocked me was the Andrew’s Sisters’ “Rum and Coca Cola” song.