If you follow me on Facebook, you will know that Wednesday, August 9th, 2023, was a special day. It was the 100th anniversary of my mother, Jacqueline Margaret Nehls Delligatti’s birth. Coincidentally, it was the day that I had booked a ticket to see a revival of Rogers and Hammerstein’s ‘Oklahoma.’ The connection of these two events is that a previous revival of ‘Oklahoma’ was the first professional theater production that I ever saw in New York City in the mid-1960s.

This production was bold and very different from the one I saw in the 1960s or from the Technicolor movie many may remember. But those songs! Oh those songs. I had forgotten how many were part of the American Song Book. Melodies and and lyrics so familiar that they came rushing back. The staging was quite stark, a few long tables and many chairs, some picnic accessories and (anachronistically) some six-packs of “Bud Lite” Beer. Since these were on the stage before the production began, I asked one of the ushers if this was a salute to Budweiser’s commercial that caused so much controversy in the U.S. While he said he did not know, he assured me that the production had some controversial elements.

While the production did include some minor changes that enhanced it (a lessening of the more racist elements in the portrayal of the trader with roots in the Middle East) and a Second Act opening scene that seemed like a portrayal of an LSD trip, it did stick to the original script and was true to Rogers and Hammerstein’s original vision for the production. It was lyrically beautiful, and shocking, everything one should expect from a classic musical. The actor playing Laurie, Anoushka Lucas has a beautiful voice. She also had the ability to act with tenderness, toughness, warmth, and all the emotions that make Laurie a complex character. The other actor playing an important female character that I found fascinating was Page Peddie as Ado Annie. Ms. Peddie seemed to channel the great American comedic actress Judy Canova, whose short films can sometimes be found on YouTube, when she sang and performed “I’m just a girl who can’t say no.” The song requires an actress who can show both the comedic side of the song and the wartmth of the woman singing it. She knows how to use her facial expressions as well as her entire body and voice to bring home the song.

The second matinee that I saw the day after “Oklahoma” was Doctor Semelman about a Hungarian doctor who recognizes that doctors and nurses washing their hands before touching patients cuts down on post operative (and post natal deaths (in the latter case of both mothers and children). He made his ‘discovery while a junior doctor at the most prestigious hospital in Europe at the time in Imperial Vienna. As an unknown young practitioner from Pest (a decade or more from joining its sister city of Buda across the Danube and eventually becoming the capital of an independent Hungary when the Hapsburg empire ended), he was not taken seriously. He was arrogant and, as we would say today, had anger issues that led to his return to Pest for many years before a disastrous return to Vienna. This show was remarkable for the many techniques it used. A rather heavy drama, it included four violins that accompanied the action at many points, a ‘greek chorus’ was present above the action and sometimes on the stage, an almost vaudevilain comedy scene was woven into the firstthird of the first act. An oddity was the fact the Mark Rylance, who plays the title character spoke with a connincing Hungarian accent other actors, (e.g., the nurse and one of the Austrian doctors spoke with Irish and African accents) while this was a bit jarring, it did not take away from the overall impact of this remarkable performance.

A couple of random photos that I have taken this week. Ironically, I saw this Budweiser ad in the Tube on my way home from “Oklahoma.”

This second one is a Blue Plaque I don’t think I had noticed before on the President Hotel near Russell Square. Richard D’Oyly Carte, of course, was responsible for the theater company that bears his name. and that Gilbert and Sullivan created their light operas for.

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