Oklahoma!
January 2004 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

You liked Hugh Jackman as Wolverine? Try the talented actor in this Royal National Theater production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s groundbreaking 1940s musical. After seeing X2, you might think Jackman would be acting the somber, down-on-himself Jud, but instead you’ll find him playing upbeat Curly, one of the few male leads in Broadway theater history who gets to sing four hit songs in the same show.

Jackman had a long history of musical performance in his native Australia, but hid it when he started auditioning for movies, feeling it would be more of a minus than a plus. Now he has made it; heck, he has been voted one of the sexiest men in several different polls, so I guess he figures he can do what he wants. You will be seeing him in more musicals coming up. Oklahoma! was actually done just before the first X-Men. He proves to be a dynamic Broadway leading man. While enjoying him as Curly, I kept thinking how good he would be in The Pajama Game, or Carousel, or in many others -- any show that needs a male lead who is very masculine, yet can exude boyish charm and sing the spots off the notes. He really has a magnificent voice.

But this is not the Jackman show, any more than Oklahoma! is the Curly show. The rest of the cast is memorable. Josefina Gabrielle plays against type as Laurie. She looks more like a Maria from West Side Story -- dark and potentially sultry. She plays Laurie as a tomboy who becomes a woman the day of the neighborhood picnic and fund-raiser for the new school. Her earnest acting and right-on-target singing make one believe in her interpretation. Maureen Upman is more traditional as crusty Aunt Eller, lovable to the core. The real surprise of this production is the Jud of Shuler Hensley. He acts the role with such insight that the audience, while realizing he is the piece’s villain, can be sympathetic about his roots. And boy, can he sing. His resonant singing of "Lonely Room" is a showstopper.

This film was made after the show had a long run at the Royal National Theater. The production was mounted on a revolving stage that allowed for fast and easy set changes. The costumes are grittier and more "Western" than in the original 1940s show. And the innovative choreography of Agnes DeMille has been replaced by equally imaginative choreography by Susan Stroman. The dancing is really the best thing about this production. Fresh and alive, it demands much of the cast members, who must also sing, and they rise splendidly to the challenge. The big set pieces, "Kansas City" and "The Farmer and the Cowman," bustle with energy, expertise, and wild abandon. And for the first time, the fantasy ballet at the end of Act I makes sense. Usually a separate Laurie, Curly, and Jud are employed to dance this, but director Trevor Nunn has assembled such a talented cast for this production that Jackman, Gabrielle, and Hensley are able to do their own dancing, which makes the scene less of an intrusion and more of a character extension.

All of the show is on the first disc in this set. The second disc contains a documentary that is only 23 minutes long, but is better than many twice that length. In addition to showing how the current production was mounted, there is discussion of the original production, as well as a brief US history lesson that talks about the era in which the show is set: Oklahoma just before it became a state.

Oddly enough, the 4:3 video for this documentary is noticeably cleaner and sharper than the anamorphic video on the first disc for the feature. The first is good enough, but comparing it to the second disc shows that it should have been better. The audio is excellent throughout, with good dynamic and frequency range, though occasionally one of the concealed microphones creates somewhat boomy sound for particular solo performers. This DVD can’t replace the Fox disc of the movie version (though that needs to be redone in anamorphic video), but it does provide all of the original numbers, as well as a fresh choreographic view of the dance numbers.  

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