O K L A H O M A
May 12, 2024 7:31 PM Subscribe
Here's the 1999 Broadway production of Oklahoma [3h], directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Hugh Jackman, Maureen Lipman, and Josefine Gabrille. It's a great production of the classic version of the story. More modern productions have been more subversive, but this is a more traditional presentation of this quite old musical.
He gave up the chance to transfer with the show to Broadway for a little movie called X-Men.
posted by tzikeh at 8:03 PM on May 12 [1 favorite]
posted by tzikeh at 8:03 PM on May 12 [1 favorite]
I mean, he is 6’3”, so it’s still accurate.
posted by jedicus at 8:03 PM on May 12 [3 favorites]
posted by jedicus at 8:03 PM on May 12 [3 favorites]
The description in the youtube item is "While released on furlough from prison, a lowly criminal evades his guards and returns to his old haunts to take revenge on the people that made him a cold-hearted killer. It’s an epic, bloody battle to search for the soul he lost years ago on the streets of an unforgiving city."
did I miss something in Oklahoma?
posted by brewsterkahle at 8:13 PM on May 12 [4 favorites]
did I miss something in Oklahoma?
posted by brewsterkahle at 8:13 PM on May 12 [4 favorites]
did I miss something in Oklahoma?
Oklahoma is a land of complicated contrasts that many can draw different conclusions from...
posted by hippybear at 8:16 PM on May 12 [1 favorite]
Oklahoma is a land of complicated contrasts that many can draw different conclusions from...
posted by hippybear at 8:16 PM on May 12 [1 favorite]
While released on furlough from prison, a lowly criminal evades his guards…Sounds a bit like a different Hugh Jackman role.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:20 PM on May 12
Huge Jackman, he's Hugh Jackman
He's always been Huge Ackman at our house.
posted by The Tensor at 10:56 PM on May 12
He's always been Huge Ackman at our house.
posted by The Tensor at 10:56 PM on May 12
I love this production, and I also deeply loved the new one (which a lot of people hated). I appreciate that both productions use the exact same text, just choose to shade it differently. My conclusion is absolutely that Oklahoma is weird & violent as hell, just like America.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:29 AM on May 13 [1 favorite]
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:29 AM on May 13 [1 favorite]
He gave up the chance to transfer with the show to Broadway for a little movie called X-Men.
Where he played a huge, jacked man.
posted by The Bellman at 6:43 AM on May 13 [1 favorite]
Where he played a huge, jacked man.
posted by The Bellman at 6:43 AM on May 13 [1 favorite]
BlahLaLa: I also deeply loved the new one (which a lot of people hated)
Don't touch my hat.
Source of that quote.
posted by tzikeh at 7:53 AM on May 13 [1 favorite]
Don't touch my hat.
Source of that quote.
posted by tzikeh at 7:53 AM on May 13 [1 favorite]
Nice. I've been meaning to watch this for the first time. I heard a fascinating discussion of the movie I'm Thinking of Ending Things which suggested the main character was a sympathetic version of Jud Fry, a lonely disturbed stalker type. Also, this live Eels bit is a perennial favorite of mine. This is a great excuse to finally dive in. Of course, that means I'll probably be rewatching I'm Thinking of Ending Things after, so that's 5-6 hours of binging I've got going for me.
posted by es_de_bah at 9:03 AM on May 13
posted by es_de_bah at 9:03 AM on May 13
Thank you, mods, for fixing Huge's name in the FPP.
:P
posted by hippybear at 4:15 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
:P
posted by hippybear at 4:15 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
More modern productions have been more subversive, but this is a more traditional presentation of this quite old musical.
Yeah, this is...definitely a musical. And I don't say that to be dismissive - when I covered the 1955 movie for my blog I got into a whole riff on Filming Adaptations Of Musicals And Why That Sometimes Doesn't Work, and came to the conclusion that some musicals simply don't survive the transfer from one art form to another. There's something about the degree of suspension of disbelief you can handle if it's theater, and how that's different from if it's a film. (Lindsay Ellis did a whole hysterical video about how this particular thing bit the Cats movie in the butt - covered on a previous FPP.)
For some musicals, it just somehow just plain doesn't work if you try to do a film adaptation. They need that "this is a play taking place on a stage" thing somehow - and I don't mean that you can't film a staged performance, like they do with Hamilton or Passing Strange or with this. I mean that if you were to take Hugh Jackman and the rest of this cast and slap them down in rural Omaha and try to film it without the stage trappings....something would be missing and somehow it wouldn't work. For the 1955 film the part that really made me sit up was the "dream ballet" sequence, because it was filmed on a soundstage and made no bones about it. Somehow it was like everything finally fit.
Which brings up the obvious question - why don't more big stage productions film their performances and then release them? I can see both sides of this - stage is by design an ephemeral medium, and if you film a big-name show then everyone stays home and watches that on streaming and no one goes to see the live show and that's the end of those actors' jobs. But Broadway's prices are getting so ridiculous that I think we may soon see a few more exceptions being made.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:37 AM on May 14
Yeah, this is...definitely a musical. And I don't say that to be dismissive - when I covered the 1955 movie for my blog I got into a whole riff on Filming Adaptations Of Musicals And Why That Sometimes Doesn't Work, and came to the conclusion that some musicals simply don't survive the transfer from one art form to another. There's something about the degree of suspension of disbelief you can handle if it's theater, and how that's different from if it's a film. (Lindsay Ellis did a whole hysterical video about how this particular thing bit the Cats movie in the butt - covered on a previous FPP.)
For some musicals, it just somehow just plain doesn't work if you try to do a film adaptation. They need that "this is a play taking place on a stage" thing somehow - and I don't mean that you can't film a staged performance, like they do with Hamilton or Passing Strange or with this. I mean that if you were to take Hugh Jackman and the rest of this cast and slap them down in rural Omaha and try to film it without the stage trappings....something would be missing and somehow it wouldn't work. For the 1955 film the part that really made me sit up was the "dream ballet" sequence, because it was filmed on a soundstage and made no bones about it. Somehow it was like everything finally fit.
Which brings up the obvious question - why don't more big stage productions film their performances and then release them? I can see both sides of this - stage is by design an ephemeral medium, and if you film a big-name show then everyone stays home and watches that on streaming and no one goes to see the live show and that's the end of those actors' jobs. But Broadway's prices are getting so ridiculous that I think we may soon see a few more exceptions being made.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:37 AM on May 14
Actually doing a quality television production filming of a musical is STUPIDLY expensive. Filming Hamilton cost $10million. And it involved not just running through the show and filming a performance, but there were a lot of stops and reshoots and it took a long time to shoot. If you think about the golden age of Sondheim musicals being filmed on stage, we got quite a few... those could basically not happen today with how expensive it would be.
Now... why Broadway theaters don't have camera systems similar to the Metropolitan Opera, which broadcasts productions all over the world every year, live from on stage... I have no idea. I'm guessing it would be a rights issue with the music to begin with?
But truly, that is what we need. Operas around the world have demonstrated how live theater can be filmed and broadcast for I think decades at this point. Why Broadway and the West End haven't capitalized on this, is entirely beyond me.
posted by hippybear at 3:24 PM on May 15 [2 favorites]
Now... why Broadway theaters don't have camera systems similar to the Metropolitan Opera, which broadcasts productions all over the world every year, live from on stage... I have no idea. I'm guessing it would be a rights issue with the music to begin with?
But truly, that is what we need. Operas around the world have demonstrated how live theater can be filmed and broadcast for I think decades at this point. Why Broadway and the West End haven't capitalized on this, is entirely beyond me.
posted by hippybear at 3:24 PM on May 15 [2 favorites]
« Older not even a see-through sleeve for my name tag | We're getting the band (back?) together! Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by hippybear at 7:35 PM on May 12 [5 favorites]