Oklahoma!

This past week-end we enjoyed an outdoor, twilight performance of Oklahoma! in our community's new amphitheater. I'm still humming "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" and "Oh What a Beautiful Morning." I loved the raucous energy of the dancers and vocalists.

Do you know why Oklahomans are called "Sooners"?

April 22, 1889 was the first day people could stake a claim for a homestead in the Oklahoma territory. Some people tried to beat the noon starting gun, and they were nicknamed "Sooners".
Over a hundred years later, Oklahomans are still known as "Sooners", although most people have no idea why!

Fiddler on the Roof

Money magazine recently named our smallish community the 6th most desirable place to live in the U.S. The only weakness cited was in the area of arts and culture. I suppose it is just too easy for suburbanites to drive to the nearby city to partake of these things.

But change is in the air! This past week-end we were treated to the very first performance of a new theatre group in our brand new outdoor amphitheater. It was one of my favorites, Fiddler on the Roof.

I love Tevye's monologues. I love the music. I am just sentimental enough to cry during "Sunrise, Sunset", much to my children's embarrassment. Can't help it~~~I've been a human faucet since hitting my 5th decade. I carry the wad of kleenex that Santa so thoughtfully left in my last Christmas stocking for just such occasions as this.

But beyond the sentiment, I recognized serious questions. How did the move into the 20th century change family tradition? The play highlights the arrival of the first sewing machine in the village, which was reverently embraced by the people. Little did they understand the impending changes the industrial revolution would bring.

One of Tevye's daughters was a reader, which was a huge break with tradition. Reading had been the sole right of men. Her reading led her to marry a social activist, resulting in her leaving the village of her birth and to move far away from her family. Another huge change for people who were used to being firmly rooted in the village of their birth.

I have ordered the book on which Fiddler on the Roof is based, called Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem. It is a book of Tevye's monologues, written by a Yiddish humorist. Can't wait to dive into this!

Addressing the musical aspect of the play: Fiddler on the Roof was extremely well received in America. The thousands of Jewish immigrants who entered this country via the portal of Ellis Island left their mark on us musically. The peculiar harmonic minor scale that is unique to Jewish music became a part of our culture, and also forms a basis for jazz music. Consider some of the notable Jewish musicians of the last century: Gershwin, Bernstein, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Dorothy Fields.

How rich we are to have so many flavors of music blended in our "melting pot".

Our Town by Thornton Wilder

"We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being."


That is my favorite quote from the classic play, Our Town by Thornton Wilder. On stage we see ordinary moments lived by ordinary people; events which slip by so swiftly that they are not savored or appreciated until death disrupts the routine.

The three acts portray three different passages in life: birth, love and marriage, and finally death. Act I starts out slowly, and the events of the small-town residents are SO mundane as to be almost boring. We see moms fixing breakfast, Dads off to work, children hurrying to school, the milk man delivering the milk. But as the 2nd and 3rd acts unfold, we look back on those same mundane activities with new eyes. Everyday connections are the very stuff of life, and they are precious, as summed up in this quote:

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?"

Throughout the play, the hymn "Blest Be the Tie that Binds" is sung repeatedly. The words of the hymn encapsulate what I believe to be the theme of the play: human connections are precious. Take time to appreciate them.

Our Town was a Broadway success back in the late 1930's, at the time of its release. It earned Wilder a Pulitzer prize and remains a classic because of its timeless message. I first saw the play as a teenager and its poignancy left a deep impression on me. So it was with pleasure that I was able to see the play again, some 35 years later. I believe the pathos and the death of the young mother in childbirth was what struck me as a teen; now in middle age I relate more to the older mamas who discussed their unfulfilled dreams and wept as their children left the nest. That change in perspective is a shadow of the very thing that the play portrays: the transient nature of life.

Originally, the setting of the play was at the turn of the century~~ 1899-1912. In the performance that our family viewed today, the time frame was changed to 1951-1963. I thoroughly enjoyed the vintage clothing, especially the house dresses and little hats with veils that the ladies wore. It was a fun little departure from the original.

I am anxious to discuss this play in-depth with my teens, but I want to give them a little time to let it percolate before talking about it too much. It is the kind of a story that needs to be contemplated and mulled over.

Highly recommended!

Poiema