Lecture 3
Notes
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Oklahoma!
1944
- Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein:
Choreography
by Agnes De Mille
Director:
Rouben Mamoulian
Based on Lyn Riggs’s play ‘Green
Grow the Lilacs’
Oklahoma!
Won a Pulitzer Prize and ran for 2,248 performances
It was the first collaboration
In
a 17 year partnership that ended with Hammerstein’s death
Agnes De Mille
Was
the daughter of Cecile B. De Mille.
Her work on Oklahoma!
n
Changed the role of dance on the musical stage.
n
She used dance to further plot and to develop character
n
She mixed dance forms
n
She researched: Darwin’s Expression of the Emotions in Man
and Animals.
Her researches also led to the now classic
American ballet.
nRodeo
To day we
may view or attribute the success of Oklahoma! In the USA:
n
As a celebration of ‘simple’
Western values in contrast to those of a sinister and possibly decadent Europe!
n
For a Post War British audience it
could be seen in the context of a celebratory mood after so many years of war.
n
We may also suggest that the
wartime ‘cultural invasion’ of Britain attributed to its success in London
Oklahoma!
May be full of chocolate box cowboys…
However
it does represent an example of ‘innovation’ in terms of serious dance in
musical theatre and it is a classic example of a musical capturing the
public’s imagination and reflecting popular taste!
Notice the primary colours in the
set and costume..
Reflecting
the simple values at the heart of Oklahoma!
For further reading:
Mates.(85)p.190-92
197-98
Lerner(86)p.150-53
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