Oklahoma!

11/14/2022

Great music, lyrics and dancing - but boy, what a truly sterile delivery. By necessity, staging has to be precise in a theatre; cinema offers little of such spacial restrictions so why is this musical choreographed to within an inch of it's life? There is virtually none of the spontaneity - especially with the rumbustious dances - that the big screen offered and what we are left with, though colourful and cheery, just lacks... something! So frequently it is as if they are still performing to that seat in the centre of the Royal Circle - complete with the casual supporting cast with their delicate short steps and stage whispers in each other's ear. Gordon MacRae looks pristine, way too pristine, and Gloria Grahame a very pale imitation of Doris Day from 2 years earlier in "Calamity Jane". C