By Jace, a Trail Mix Contributor
One last look at American musicals. Hope you have enjoyed the review.
From one of the most American of American musicals, Oklahoma.
Enjoy the music enjoy the dance but most of all enjoy your day.
More Posts by Jace
User-Supported News Commentary Hosted by Craig Crawford
By Jace, a Trail Mix Contributor
One last look at American musicals. Hope you have enjoyed the review.
From one of the most American of American musicals, Oklahoma.
Enjoy the music enjoy the dance but most of all enjoy your day.
More Posts by Jace
a bit of background on above’s choreography from uhoklahoma:
In 1942, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, a successful ballet company in Europe, invited de Mille to create a new ballet for their repertoire. She choreographed Rodeo, a ballet about American cowboys and cowgirls. With a score by Aaron Copeland, Rodeo tells the story of a young cowgirl tomboy in search of love. The ballet used stylized movements to represent cowboys riding horseback and roping cattle. Rodeo was an immediate success and received 22 curtain calls on opening night Gclub.
The dance style of Rodeo fused classical ballet technique with modern dance and American culture. This unique dance style caught the attention of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and they invited de Mille to choreograph Oklahoma! De Mille’s choreography for Oklahoma! combined classical ballet, modern dance, and stylized gesture in a way that had not been seen in musical theatre before. She created the first “dream ballet” sequence using dance without lyrics to convey the characters’ emotions and struggles. Earlier musicals included dance, but usually as an interlude or for pure entertainment. For the first time in a musical Holiday Palace, dance was used to convey the character’s emotions and motivation to the audience and to move the plot forward. The dream ballet later became a common characteristic of musicals during that era.
After Oklahoma!, de Mille continued to choreograph ballets and musicals. Her musicals include Carousel (1945), Brigadoon (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949) and Paint Your Wagon (1951), as well as a dramatic ballet called Fall River Legend (1948). De Mille also worked on revivals of musicals, including the 1979 Broadway revival of Oklahoma!
hmmm, locking the barn door after the horse is stolen?
nytimes via msn: “Wary of Hackers, States Move to Upgrade Voting Systems”
Reacting in large part to Russian efforts to hack the presidential election last year, a growing number of states are upgrading electoral databases and voting machines, and even adding cybersecurity experts to their election teams. The efforts — from both Democrats and Republicans — amount to the largest overhaul of the nation’s voting infrastructure since the contested presidential election in 2000 spelled an end to punch-card ballots and voting machines with mechanical levers.
One aim is to prepare for the 2018 and 2020 elections by upgrading and securing electoral databases and voting machines that were cutting-edge before Facebook and Twitter even existed. Another is to spot and defuse attempts to depress turnout and sway election results by targeting voters with false news reports and social media posts.
[….]
For all the expressions of resolve, money remains the biggest obstacle to a complete overhaul of the system. Many jurisdictions rely on equipment bought after the 2002 Help America Vote Act, Congress’s response to the problems exposed by the 2000 presidential election, allotted nearly $4 billion for new machines and other reforms. Many of those machines are at or past the end of their service lives; Georgia conducted November’s elections on voting machines running Windows 2000, and parts of Pennsylvania relied on Windows XP.
Most states still use paper ballots that are counted by hand or by machines. But four other states besides Delaware — Louisiana, Georgia, New Jersey and South Carolina — use paperless systems that leave no audit trail, as do large swaths of Pennsylvania and some other states. Virginia scrapped thousands of paperless voting machines in 2015 after discovering that even an amateur hacker could easily and secretly change vote tallies.
and now to ruin the mood of that beautiful dream sequence jace gave us this morning
Not really familiar with the story of Oklahoma! but I heard the songs scores of times when Mom and Dad played the soundtrack on the stereo. I never saw the broadway production in its revivals but saw the movie at some point in my youth. I liked it about like I liked musicals in general – not a lot, but the songs were iconic. The only thing I knew about the Broadway production was that Bonnie Raitt’s dad was in it and he was the Curly voice on my parents’ record. I musta been in early year or two of grad school when I learned that.
So thanks for the memories, Jace.
wapo: The drug industry’s triumph over the DEA
In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets.
By then, the opioid war had claimed 200,000 lives, more than three times the number of U.S. military deaths in the Vietnam War. Overdose deaths continue to rise. There is no end in sight.
A handful of members of Congress, allied with the nation’s major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to a more industry-friendly law, undermining efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills, according to an investigation by The Washington Post and “60 Minutes.” The DEA had opposed the effort for years.
The law was the crowning achievement of a multifaceted campaign by the drug industry to weaken aggressive DEA enforcement efforts against drug distribution companies that were supplying corrupt doctors and pharmacists who peddled narcotics to the black market. The industry worked behind the scenes with lobbyists and key members of Congress, pouring more than a million dollars into their election campaigns.
[…continues….]
foreign policy:
The Donald Trump administration has already picked fights with most international organizations and accords, from NATO to NAFTA. This week, it took aim at the World Bank, refusing to pony up more money for development projects because the bank lends so much money to China. That could serve to turbocharge China’s own efforts to craft an alternative to Western-led development banks.
For two years, the World Bank has been trying to get member countries to subscribe to a capital increase for its development unit, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and hoped to reach a deal this week during the annual meeting in Washington. But the U.S. Treasury won’t back the move.
“The bottom line here is right now we’ve got too high a percentage of the World Bank’s balance sheet that’s going to countries and to projects that already have ample borrowing capacity,” a senior Treasury official told Reuters, which noted that China is the IBRD’s biggest recipient of development loans, totaling $2.4 billion.
The Treasury official suggested that poor countries should use their own limited money or turn to the private sector, instead of seeking the development aid that has traditionally been disbursed as part of the World Bank’s poverty-reduction mission.
“To fund development needs, there needs to be renewed focus on domestic resource mobilization and engagement in private sector development,” the official told Reuters.
By tying funding to the World Bank’s China portfolio, former Treasury official Scott Morris told the Financial Times, the Trump administration is essentially “picking a direct fight with China.”
[….continues…]
Ten years ago a group of bloggers wrote articles every Monday based on a single word. The one I wrote for “Green” was about Oklahoma both in history and family.
Manic Monday – Green
A little more info on the musical & cast. The original Oklahoma production on stage had Ado Annie played by Celeste Holm who went on to an even bigger career in film including High Society. In the movie, Annie was played by Gloria Grahame whose death is memorialized in an upcoming movie, “Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool” starring Annette Bening as Gloria.
Curly was played by Alfred Drake originally on Broadway as well as several others in its long run including John Raitt and Howard Keel and then by Gordon MacRae on the screen. Anyone who knows me, know that my current favorite actor played Curly in a West End revival before anyone ever knew he could sprout claws. He will be in another musical this Christmas with The Greatest Showman.
https://youtu.be/V4oxvJdMkNU
Must say, Pogo, I’m with you about watching entire musicals, the plots seemed so strained and awkward — too difficult to suspend disbelief when actors spontaneously burst into song for no apparent reason. BUT listening to just the songs, as Jace has done for us, is much easier to appreciate.
Craig
What I love about musicals is that the songs make it possible to tell a much bigger story with lyrics than just depending on dialogue. A big “for instance” would be “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables that actually gives you the past ten years of the character’s life as she goes from innocence to complete degradation and from intense love to intense hatred that you hear in the end of the next song of Lovely Ladies.
Easy money
Lying on a bed
Just as well they never see
The hate that’s in your head
Don’t they know they’re making love
To one already dead!
The most recent musical to tell a whole history of many people in the space of two hours is “Come From Away” that takes you through the lives of the plane passengers stranded in Nova Scotia because of the attack on the Twin Towers and covers everything from women’s lib (Me and The Sky) to international relations as a small town doubles in size overnight and the inhabitants have to care for their unexpected guests “Blankets & Bedding”.
craig & pogo, even the most anti of anti-musicals types would enjoy “paint your wagon” if for no other reason than lee marvin
Noooooooooooooooo we want more musicals.
Great song lyrics. I love his last appearance on the screen in Paint Your Wagon because it speak to my Thursday’s child gypsy instincts from moving so much through life. “I’ve never seen a sight that didn’t look better looking back.”
https://youtu.be/El9eCRisbDo
My parents had the album for the Oklahoma musical and they played it on their stereo HiFi cabinet…a piece of furniture back in the day. I can still sing most of the lyrics. When my parents left for work? We would play the Beatles and the Mama & Papas albums before school. Hubby, an actor, hates musicals…yet, he sings to me and his dog all of the time…takes my phrases and sings them back to me. Our life IS a musical. I am more of a dancer…those lovely dance ‘numbers’ of the plays.
Thanks to all for the background and the posts. They really help to flesh out the material.
You all do make Sunday Special.?
I believe it is from the musical that Oklahoma got saddled with the mediocrity label, ‘OK.’ Oklahoma — meh!
Jace: You’ve done it again! Thank you, this is definitely the way to my my heart 😉 I have a long standing love affair with Oklahoma. As a child I was obsessed with Broadway soundtracks and pretty much wore out all my albums. Oklahoma is one of my top two musicals of all time! I go back and forth between that and Les Mis as my all time favorites but for most of my life Oklahoma was #1. I had both the original Alfred Drake Broadway cast and the original Howard Keel London cast albums. I also saw the ’55 movie with Gordon MacRae the minute it came out. I have books about it and even the original play it was based on Green Grow The Lilacs by Lynn Riggs. (I actually just gave my copy as a gift to a friend of my son who is from Oklahoma and a Cherokee, as Lynn Riggs was.) Howard was my all time favorite musical star until 2003 when I first saw the ’98 London revival on PBS and met a guy named Hugh Jackman for the first time! OMG! My son had been trying to get me to watch the X-Men movies for a couple years telling me “I know you’ll like it if you give it a try” I couldn’t believe that this was the same actor in both so I had to watch everything else he did and I was hooked! My son was quite surprised when I told him about Oklahoma too. I have the DVD and watch it whenever I have a bad day 🙂 I’m posting a copy of that version of the dream ballet scene for comparison if anyone is interested. I love that the ’98 version really seemed much closer to the original source material (GGrL), which was much darker than the original Broadway musical or the movie. Also they hired a cast who could both sing and dance so they used the real cast members in the ballet scene. In the movie version they substituted dancers for the cast members which I always found a bit distracting. Anyway here’s Hugh & company:
GrannyMumantoog,
Great post. Thanks.?
jace
The “book musical” is only a fairly recent development in theater with Oklahoma being one of if not the first to have a coherent story line. More and more these days, the music is decidedly blended as an extension of the story.
With 1776 you have the actual use of the Founders speeches and letters turned into song as in Abigail and John’s letters in “Yours, yours, yours”.
Then there is Hamilton. The amount of research Lin-Manuel Miranda had to do to create those raps is incredible. Talk about a sex scandal in the midst of creating a nation. Fortunately we don’t do that sort of stuff any more. lol
I think Agnes deMille (and folks such as Jace) are responsible for Oklahoma’s long runs and popularity as home town theater
Musicals are a mix for me. Many of the 1950’s are really hard to get into:
The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli, 1953)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen, 1954)
Calamity Jane (David Butler, 1953)
Show Boat (George Sidney, 1951)
Kiss Me Kate (George Sidney, 1953)
Kismet (Vincente Minnelli, 1955)
Gigi (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)
Number one on that list is Oklahoma.
Musicals I do like are South Pacific. Hmm, short list.
There are also distinctions between plays, and movies. Sometimes the movie is much better than the play. Sometimes the movie really smells and the play is better. And frequently neither is worthwhile.
Sometimes only one song from a play is worthy. I’ll Never Fall In Love Again from Promises, Promises is one example.
But, from someone without any musical ability at all, including clapping hands in rhythm, give me music and I will try to listen to it.
SiriusXM Radio has a channel devoted to musicals On Broadway.
jack, where on your list is “the music man”? one the wowest moments in a broadway production was when the band marched thru the very surprised audience playing “seventy six trombones” bringing down the rafters almost… wow is an understatement. Robert preston was the epitome of Harold hill.
and so was rex Harrison the epitome of henry Higgins in one my top favorite musicals “my fair lady” based on shaw’s “Pygmalion”, one of my favorite authors/character/curmudgeon.
granny, that was so enchanting and much more sensual than the older film…. guess in those days it wouldn’t have passed muster by the censors in league/legion of decency. thank you for finding that for us.
wapo having fun
Published Oct.13,2017
It’s like the movie “Mean Girls,” except it’s in the White House.
okay, Weinstein move over… the real predator, the creep in chief himself, is in the news now
the hill:
Trump accuser subpoenas campaign for documents on other allegations: report
A woman who has accused President Trump of groping her in 2007 is subpoenaing his campaign for any documents on “any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately,” BuzzFeed News reported Sunday.
The woman, Summer Zervos, is a former contestant on Trump’s reality show, “The Apprentice.”
Her subpoena requests “all documents concerning any accusations that were made during Donald J. Trump’s election campaign for president, that he subjected any woman to unwanted sexual touching and/or sexually inappropriate behavior.”
The subpoena was filed in March but not available on the court record until last month, BuzzFeed reported.
Zervos went public with her claims last October, ahead of the presidential election. Trump denied the allegations.
She was one of eleven women to come forward and accuse Trump of sexual harassment or assault in the weeks after an “Access Hollywood” tape revealed Trump bragging about grabbing women.
Zervos filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump in January, just days before his inauguration.
“On Nov. 11, 2016, I called on Mr. Trump to retract his statements about me calling me a liar. I also called upon him to state that what I said about his behavior toward me was true,” Zervos said at a press conference at the time.
“More than two months have gone by and he has not issued that retraction. I wanted to give Mr. Trump the opportunity to retract his false statements about me and the other women who came forward.”
Trump’s lawyer pushed to dismiss Zervos’s lawsuit in July. His lawyers claimed that a Supreme Court decision that found presidents could be sued while in office didn’t apply because the decision only applied to federal lawsuits.
Been decades ago now, but our local Methodist junior college used to combine the music and drama departments to perform a spring musical. That’s how the knobite got to see Oklahoma, South Pacific, Camelot, Oliver!, and Fiddler on the Roof, way WAY off Broadway.
I have a CD of my beloved Thomas Hampson singing show tunes whereon John Raitt gives Hampson a schoolin’ on a piece from The Pajama Game. By the time the CD came out Raitt’s voice was of course long past its prime, but there is a difference between opera and Broadway, a difference that Raitt illustrated in his inimitable style. Hampson to my regret got showed up proper.
Ahem. My favorite song from Paint Your Wagon is ” They Call the Wind Maria”, and my favorite version is by the great country trio The Browns. Faster tempo than the way it’s usually sung, blazing strings, fills by the Anita Kerr Singers. Sigh. . .
Love me some Hamilton, too, although rap isn’t a medium I particularly care for.
One interesting outcome of the West End Oklahoma production was that Shuler Hensley who played Judd and Hugh Jackman became fast friends. (they used to have problems keeping straight faces during Poor Jud Is Dead). Shuler has established a wonderful educational charity to encourage the arts with the Arts Bridge Foundation and has often called on Hugh to help fund the activities.
well, this may help loosen up some tongues that were paid less than 10 mm to stay quiet when it happened
business insider: Hustler Magazine founder takes out full-page ad offering $10 million for information that could lead to Trump’s impeachment
Larry Flynt, the founder of Hustler Magazine, bought a full-page ad in The Washington Post on Sunday, offering $10 million to anyone with information that could lead to President Donald Trump’s impeachment.
The ad said there was a strong reason to believe the 2016 election was “illegitimate in many ways” because Trump lost the popular vote, and was voted in because of an Electoral College “quirk” and Republican gerrymandering.
“Trump has proven he’s dangerously unfit to exercise the extreme power accrued by our ‘unitary executive’,” the ad read.
[….]
The ad conceded that while impeachment would be a “messy, contentious affair,” the alternative — another three years of a Trump presidency — was worse. Flynt also called for the release of Trump’s tax returns, as well as other financial and business records, arguing that “there may be a smoking gun” and that “impeachment requires unimpeachable evidence.”
The ad ended with Flynt saying that while he did not expect Trump’s wealthy allies to turn on him, he believed that “there are many people in the know for whom $10 million is a lot of money.”
Flynt said he could easily spend the $10 million on other things, “but what good would that do me in a world devastated by the most powerful moron in history?”
With Hugh Hefner gone, we need to depend on Flynt to flush out the sexually predacious. Glad he is starting with the vile one in the White House.
I give you Trump’s tweets and television appearances……where’s my ten million?
Hey folks, when all else fails, find a parade and get to the front of it.?
Jamie,
Look for Trump to offer 20 million in hush money.
Kidding aside, sooner or later those tax returns have to come out. They must be really ugly.
Personally I can’t wait to see his 1040 splashed across all those fake news sites like the Washington Post and The NY Times.
Paint Your Wagon. Funny as hell. Lee Marvin as a drunk miner whose voice was, well, not made for singing – and it worked for the comedy of the film.
Jace
Musicals just love a good Parade. lol
And the night I saw this one, the cast actually came marching down the aisles for two numbers and danced with the audience.