"Fish’s wide-awake, jolting and altogether wonderful production...Such a metamorphosis has been realized with scarcely a changed word of Oscar Hammerstein II’s original book...A cozy old friend starts to seem like a figure of disturbing — and exciting — depth and complexity...It was an exciting work from the get-go, but it just keeps getting better. The performances are looser and bigger; they’re Broadway-size now, with all the infectious exuberance you expect from a great musical."
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"Fish’s fascinating and unsettling reimagination...has moved to Broadway, with its immediacy, strangeness and eerie sense of danger intact...Seeing the production a second time allows one to appreciate not only the striking darkness that Fish and company have teased out of the material, but also the light they shine on small details. It's thrilling to see a Broadway classic rise to the challenge of so modern a conception. ‘Oklahoma!’ it remains, but there's nothing corny about it."
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"On my second visit to its cornfields, I was struck not only by the production’s menace but by its joy. This 'Oklahoma!' is no stuffy academic revisionist exercise — it’s a theatrical blow-out...The production has gotten fuller, freer, and funnier in its Broadway transfer...I respect a musical that gives me extraordinary performances, gorgeously reimagined songs, a piercing allegory of the American experiment in all its vigor and its brutality, and a cast that knows what they’re working with."
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"Hammerstein’s large-spirited, all-American optimism is dismissed with contemptuous irony as a tool of the patriarchy at its most violently oppressive..Is there anything good about this production? Absolutely. For openers, Ali Stroker...Mr. Fish’s 'Oklahoma!' is a travesty, a sneering burlesque of the most influential and beloved Broadway musical of the 20th century. If the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization had any self-respect, it would shut the whole thing down."
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"Fish’s astonishing reimagining...This immersive 'Oklahoma!' is at once minimalist and explosive...The usual show tune gloss is gone, replaced with the twang and punch of roots rock alt-country...Loglines and character summaries fail here, as each character is upended from tradition and brought to vivid new life…’Oklahoma!’ rings out with a nod to the sublime, violent beauty Hendrix found in our national anthem. Is it so surprising Fish finds it on the plains?"
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"At once a shockingly brilliant and unstinting metaphoric exploration of our current collective condition and, for anyone still so invested, a deeply depressing dissection of all-American romantic ideals...I found it fascinating and filled with metaphoric precision, isolationist creativity and the surety of its own conviction; but I felt profoundly saddened by its fear of vulnerability, its disavowal of the power of love, and its cynical degradation of all-American optimism."
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"The audience is just a pounding heartbeat away...The wonder of this production is that so much of the joy and optimism of the original work still shines bright through the darkness...Fish exposes those sexual passions that are kept firmly repressed in traditional productions...The only failure with this let-it-all-hang-out directorial style is the Dream Ballet, which is supposed to hint delicately of the lovers’ yearnings but is here allowed to go on ad nauseam."
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"A bold reimagining of a familiar work can deliver an altogether different and far more startling thrill, bringing out unexpected textures and exposing previously subterranean thematic seams...For audiences open to experiencing 'Oklahoma!' from a fresh perspective, director Daniel Fish's probing revamp will be a revelation...Even more impressive though is the fact that it remains such bracing entertainment, compromising neither the drama nor the comedy."
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