THEATER REVIEW
“Oklahoma!”
Grade: A
8:30 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays. Through Aug. 17. $15-$30. Serenbe Playhouse, The Haybarn at the Inn at Serenbe. 10950 Hutcheson Ferry Road, Chattahoochee Hills. 770-463-1110, www.serenbeplayhouse.com.
Bottom line: An “Oklahoma!” that’s a lot more than OK!
Beside a hay barn in the middle of a green pasture, Aunt Eller goes about the business of starting her day. She hears a voice that startles her for a second. She looks around as if to say, “Oh, it’s just that old Curly,” and goes back to her puttering.
Aunt Eller might be able to shrug off Curly’s teasing. But Serenbe Playhouse audiences won’t be able to get the image off their minds for some time to come. It’s not just that Curly is a handsome young cuss who sings “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ ” in a magnificent tenor that’s as clear and bright as dewdrops.
It’s that he makes his entrance on a horse.
Welcome to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” — Serenbe style. Staged in an outdoor setting where the cows really do “stand like statues” and “the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye,” it’s the most magical production of the 1943 classic I’ve ever seen.
Not to take anything away from Broadway shows with big-name stars, British directors and clever choreographers, but no matter how they try, these titans of the West End and the Great White Way can’t create scenery that compares to the starry skies and lush landscape of the Chattahoochee Hills community where Serenbe Playhouse lives.
Director Brian Clowdus’ eye for talent is on par with his sense of spectacle, too.
In Edward McCreary’s Curly we have the makings of a genuine star. McCreary not only sings beautifully, but also invests his character with a winning combination of boyish pluck and sexual vitality. Though it takes a moment to warm up to Kelly Chapin Schmidt’s Laurey, she eventually captures the emotional chaos of her character. Much of that conflict results from Laurey’s ambivalence about the outcast farmhand Jud Fry. And as for Jud, Bryant Smith imbues him with brute physicality, seething anger, endless yearning — all of which shines through in the song “Lonely Room.” Pore Jud, indeed. Smith is no giant of a man, but his baritone is monumental.
Lala Cochran brings terrific comedy to the brassy, sassy Aunt Eller. Because she lives naturally in her long frocks and underdrawers, Cochran’s Aunt Eller seems more like a real person than a caricature. There’s shtick to spare, however, in the love triangle that is Ado Annie (Jessica Miesel), Will Parker (Austin Tijerina) and Ali Hakim (Tony Larkin). On the night I caught the show, Miesel had a good bit of trouble with her microphone, which made her flamboyant acting style feel a little jarring. Larkin seemed to lose touch from time to time with his character’s ethnicity, sounding more American than Persian, though to be fair, it’s a tricky role that traffics in unfortunate stereotypes by today’s standards.
The spunk and energy that Tijerina brings to Will Parker is funny and engaging — though he is perhaps just a tad sprightly to make for a credible cowpoke. As Ado Annie’s father, Andrew Carnes, Steve Hudson is a hoot.
Bubba Carr contributes lovely choreography, though Laurey’s dream sequence seems murkier than necessary. Jane B. Kroessig’s costumes are perfect for this enclave of farmers, cowboys and their lady friends. And did we mention that fabulous hay barn of a stage? Kevin Frazier washes it in lighting that is appropriately lurid and luminous.
As far as musical theater goes in Atlanta, we place great value on glitzy world premieres and Broadway tours. But sometimes, the best work is in unexpected places. When I find myself admiring the way pitchforks lean against a rough-hewn barn, marveling at birds flying in formation across a twilit sky, feeling my heart soaring at the sound of that anthem “Oklahoma!,” I know I am in the presence of great theater. Clowdus and Serenbe Playhouse are onto something — something big for Atlanta audiences, something game-changing. They know they belong to the land, and the land they belong to is grand.
