Word: theater
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...indulge in an archaeological dig. Broadway will suffice. For the past three or four years, month has scarcely followed month without the unearthing of some hit play or musical of the past. Some fare well; some do badly. The chances are that Oklahoma!, at Broadway's Palace Theater, will be a hit. Its endearing score is in destructible, and the new production is finely cast and admirably polished...
...fact remains that Oklahoma! is as anachronistic as the surrey with the fringe on top. More than any other theater form, the musical mirrors the social milieu in which it is born. This show's ostensible locale and time span are Indian territory, now Oklahoma, just before statehood. But its real dateline is U.S.A., 1943. It exudes robust confidence, the abiding force of the individual will, and a subliminal, but immutable, determination to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese...
...them are rodeo-hoydenish and others are balletically romantic. The songs, of course, are a Comstock lode of golden oldies from People Will Say We're in Love to Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin '. You won't just be humming these tunes as you leave the theater. You will hum them for the rest of your life...
Helen Hayes, actress, on discrimination: "There is no racial or religious prejudice among people in the theater. The only prejudice is against bad actors, especially successful ones...
Another project, conceived after Tommy but so far unrealized, is a futuristic tale about the rediscovery of music in a society that is totally programmed and controlled. Called Lifehouse, the piece was intended to be a kind of environmental theater event. Some of Townshend's best songs were written originally for Lifehouse: Baba O'Riley, with its synthesizer line running like cold water down the spine, mixing with an old Irish fiddle reel and the memorable lyric refrain, "Don't cry/ Don't raise your eye/ It's only teen-age wasteland"; the aching, almost elegant poignancy of The Song...