The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Goodspeed says ‘Oklahoma OK!’
River Rep veteran Jenn Thompson directing classic musical
EAST HADDAM » Theater schedules are made a year or so ahead of time, so toward the end of Jenn Thompson’s last job at Goodspeed Opera House a year ago, she was asked to direct this summer’s “Oklahoma!”
She accepted. “And then the world turned upside down,” she said, referring to the election of President Donald Trump.
Don’t worry; there are no Trump-modeled characters in Goodspeed’s latest musical arriving this coming week, but old musicals are not immune from the rumbles of modern events.
“Whatever side you’re on, it still turned upside down,” Thompson continued in a recent interview. “And it changed the way I looked at the show; it’s just different. It didn’t change my affection for it, but we’re not living in that same world.”
Thompson chatted about the show on a break from rehearsals the other day, where she had just completed the “blocking” task — where a director tells actors where they should be on stage for dramatic effect and to ensure audience sight lines. That work is a “beast” for a show this big, she said.
“It’s always a challenge, a very cool challenge I will say, staging these big shows at Goodspeed,” she said. “And this is a particularly big show...”
Now comes the fun part, she said, of getting the show premiere-ready. It runs from Friday through Sept. 23.
Thompson grew up immersed in theater; her grandparents were theater director/writer Harlan Thompson and writer-actress Marian Spitzer; her parents are the late actor Evan Thompson and actress Joan Shepherd (who was in HBO’s “Girls”). And her brother Owen Thompson is also an actor.
Also an experienced actress, Jenn Thompson has never appeared in a version of “Oklahoma!,” she said, although her parents did — before her birth.
“But I grew up with pictures of them and stories of them... and actually even have some home movies, Super 8 footage, of them backstage doing the show. So it’s definitely somewhere in my hard drive.”
And her grandparents were friends with Richard Rodgers.
Thompson directed last summer’s “Bye Bye Birdie” at Goodspeed, and said she’s always impressed by the crew and craft at the multilevel opera house on the river as they breathe new life into classics of musical theater.
“It’s unbelievable, and really the stuff that goes on backstage is almost as interesting as the stuff that goes on onstage. ... The expertise with which it is done is kind of staggering.”
The musical chestnut this time is Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beloved “Oklahoma!” — the Pulitzer Prize winner centered on cowboy Curly and farm girl Laurey. It’s familiar from stage and film to millions of Americans. So it’s Thompson and this veteran crew’s job to remind older viewers why it was charming and fresh in the past and to introduce it to a new generation.
The venue helps.
“There’s nothing like it,” Thompson said about the Goodspeed’s musical success. “I mean, I’ve worked all over the country and in New York and all kinds of theaters, big and small, with lots of resources and with very little resources. And (yes) it’s the magic of theater — it always comes together — but what happens at Goodspeed is a miracle. There’s no question,” she chuckled.
Part of that is the overachieving eight-piece band in the compact orchestra pit and the musical orchestrations by longtime Goodspeed guy Dan DeLange, who Thompson calls “a genius, and I don’t use that word lightly.”
It’s a place of much charm, where first-timers or even veteran theater-goers can’t quite figure out the mystery-house layout of the place.
Thompson said “Oklahoma!” may be a classic but a director still has to have a plan and some leeway in how to stage it.
“My approach, whether it’s a play or a musical, is to ... approach it like it’s a new piece, certainly for myself. And of course the more iconic the material, the bigger an effort that is,” she said. That means imagining you didn’t grow up on the movie with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, she said.
The other thing Thompson does is ask herself why she’s doing the show now — “why did this happen, like, in the universe? Why did this come my way and how will the show be viewed now?”
Again, the prism of today changes how period pieces are viewed.
“And it’s particularly interesting with this show, which is such an American classic, maybe the American classic and (it) kind of redefined... culturally, on a certain level, what America was. It was such a phenomenon when it came out.”
The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943. The stage version started as “Away We Go!” at New Hav-
en’s Shubert Theatre before tweaking brought the rousing number “Oklahoma!” and a title change on the way to Broadway.
“I think people latched onto what is so aspirational and hopeful about the show. That was what, I think, we needed to feel like... in wartime America. And it was like, ‘This is the real America’ on some level.”
Her plan otherwise is to just make it so compelling a ride that we suspend our disbelief about whether the stubborn central duo (played by last year’s Conrad Birdie character Rhett Guter and Samantha Bruce) will even fall in love.
Also starring will be Jake Swain (another “Birdie” cast member), Terry Burrell, Gizel Jimenez, C. Mingo Long, Matthew Curiano, Matt Faucher, Kelly Berman, Morgan Cowling, Lauren Csete, Mark Deler, Tamrin Goldberg and Tripp Hampton.
Thompson worked for many years in her family-led New York-based troupe River Rep, which staged summer productions at Ivoryton Playhouse through 2005 and where she proudly recalls her oversight of the successful Intern Company.
She said today there seems to be a struggle in America “to even define what being American means, which I think is really interesting.”
The show is set in 1906, when the West had been largely won, and Native Americans marginalized.
That element isn’t included, but “there’s a lot of darkness in this show... there’s a lot of violence and ... a sort of underbelly to the show,” Thompson said. “When you first think about ‘Oklahoma!’, you think about ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’ and it’s so rousing. And maybe people even think of it as cheesy or corny or cornfed or whatever... and sometimes it’s been sort of sanitized . ... But the truth is the source material is this really beautiful play called “Green Grow the Lilacs” and Rodgers and Hammerstein really retained at its core this darkness, something that was almost feral that was happening in that untamed, unclaimed place.”
It taps into the dual track of American history, said the director.
“We are this aspirational (people); there’s this great reach that America and Americans traffic in. This entrepreneurial ... can-do, outstretched hand. But along with that comes other, less-good stuff.”
The music — from “The Surrey With the Fringe On Top” to the rousing title song — and the choreography by Katie Spelman should win the day with Okie charm.
“It’s a big, good time. There’s no sacrifice to what is boot-stomping and hearty and fun,” said Thompson. “But (the darker side) definitely gives it some teeth and it gives us an anchor... and something for actors to stick in there for themselves.”
But back to the tumultuous American political and media times. Thompson acknowledged there have been some controversial artistic reactions to the Trump phenomenon.
“What’s happening in theater, and art in general but maybe theater more specifically because it’s so community-based, is significant now,” she said. “There’s a real responsibility in times like this as story-tellers.”
Curtain times for Goodspeed’s first staging of “Oklahoma!” are Wednesdays at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Thursdays at 7:30 (with select performances at 2), Fridays at 8, Saturdays at 3 and 8 and Sunday at 2 (with select performances at 6:30).
Tickets (starting at $29) are available through the box office (860-873-8668), open seven days a week, or online at goodspeed.org.