It’s . . . OK Oklahoma! returns to the Colonial BY JEFFREY GANTZ
	Oklahoma! Music by Richard Rodgers. Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. Based on the Royal National Theatre/Cameron Mackintosh Broadway production. Directed by Fred Hanson. Choreography by Susan Stroman, re-created by Ginger Thatcher. Sets and costumes by Anthony Ward. Lighting by David Hersey. Sound by Brian Ronan. With Brandon Andrus, Amanda Rose, Tom Lucca, Pat Sibley, Sarah Shahinian, Daniel Robinson, Colin Trahan, and Gordon Gray. At the Colonial Theatre through June 5.

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s surrey with the fringe on top has had quite a buggy ride, from its disastrous March 11, 1943, opening at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven under the name Away We Go! to its rebirth just days later at Boston’s Colonial Theatre as Oklahoma! (complete with the newly written title song) to the successful March 31 opening on Broadway, where it ran for five and a half years. The Fred Zinnemann–directed Technicolor film followed in 1955, with Gordon MacRae as Curly, Shirley Jones as Laurey, and Rod Steiger as Jud and choreography (including a Freudian dream sequence) by Agnes de Mille. In 1998, producer Cameron Mackintosh and director Trevor Nunn hitched up a new three-hour production for the Royal National Theatre whose snow-white horses were Down Under hunk Hugh Jackman as Curly and Susan Stroman’s snappy dance numbers. A televised version was shown on PBS’s Great Performances last November. Now, 61 years later, a non-equity Oklahoma! with Nunn and Stroman stand-ins trots back into the Colonial for a two-week run.

For all those birth pangs, the musical that made it to Broadway had a sumptuous score and more plot than most. It’s the turn of the century, the title territory is edging toward statehood, and the farmers and the cowmen are engaged in the usual range war. Cowhand Curly and farmer’s niece Laurey are sweet on each other, but each is waiting for the other to make the first move, and Laurey seems ambivalent about the darker attentions of farmhand Jud. In a parallel sub-scenario, farmer’s daughter Ado Annie has eyes for cowhand Will, but the exotic lure of peddler Ali Hakim — and any other man she’s near — keeps getting in the way. The Royal National Theatre production as represented by the Great Performances telecast (whose editing suffered from a bad case of the Chicagos) was a grim, gritty affair that showed how much belief and innocence we’ve lost in the 50 years since the film. Jackman’s Curly and Josefina Gabrielle’s denim-overalled Laurey were more bicker than banter, and next to de Mille’s strutting, Stroman’s looked all sex and no sass.

At the Colonial (where I saw the preview night), the curtain rising on Anthony Ward’s Dust Bowl set (not a hint of green anywhere in this Oklahoma) discloses a wagon carcass and a derrick windmill and Aunt Eller cranking a butter churn in the middle of nowhere. The wooden farmhouse, when it does appear, is tall and narrow, with a steep-pitched roof and myriad farm implements; it swivels to reveal Jud’s dingy smokehouse. The corn in front of which Ado Annie sings "I Cain’t Say No" is higher than an elephant’s eye, and the schoolhouse skeleton that forms the backdrop for "The Farmer and the Cowman" is higher still. The 15-piece orchestra, more buckboard than surrey, is adequate except in Laurey’s dream, where it lacks menace.

The cast is better than adequate. Amanda Rose’s Laurey is spontaneous and impulsive and even looks a tad like Judy Garland when she smiles, which is often. Her sweet, firm voice gets reedy only at the top of "People Will Say We’re in Love." Brandon Andrus’s callow Curly is authoritative with Laurey (their body language nicely belies their words) and Aunt Eller, but all the manhood goes out of his voice when he’s with Tom Lucca’s Jud. "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ " and "People Will Say" come out fine; "Pore Jud Is Daid" is lightweight in its affect, and "Oklahoma!", which needs twister power, is more of a zephyr. Lucca brings out the regular guy beneath Jud’s obsession and violence; you can see why Laurey is tempted. Pat Sibley doesn’t quite have the pipes for "The Farmer and the Cowman," but the vocal weight and timing she brings to Aunt Eller amply compensate. Sarah Shahinian’s Ado Annie and Daniel Robinson’s Will Parker seem modeled on their film and Broadway predecessors, no bad thing; Colin Trahan’s Ali Hakim has a little trouble with his accent, and Gordon Gray’s Pa Carnes is a bit of a pussycat.

There are some thoughtful touches: a tight-lipped Laurey and one of her girlfriends mouthing furiously after Jud announces he’s taking Laurey to the box social; Jud using the same leg whip to bring Curly down in their climactic fight that he did in Laurey’s dream; Ike Skidmore giving Curley and Laurey a gas-powered surrey as a wedding present. Stroman’s choreography still looks generic next to de Mille’s, and the pace is a little poky. Even after cutting the girls’ "Out of Your Dreams" and Ali Hakim’s "It’s a Scandal! It’s an Outrage," this show doesn’t exactly sweep down the plain — clocking in at just under three hours with a 20-minute intermission, it’s more like lazy circles in the sky.