The new Oklahoma! that’s in San Francisco now is more than just OK. It’s a captivating spin on the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic that pulls off a rare parlor trick: Without changing any of the 70-year-old musical’s lyrics or dialogue, it feels like it could have been written last month.
Some of this is because of the diverse, multi-racial casting, but tell your uncle at the next family get-together to save the “Wokelahoma” jokes, because this staging isn’t the finger-wagging lecture in identity that he thinks it is.
Instead, this Oklahoma! gets downright avant-garde. A dancer (Jordan Wynn) performs to a jagged, angular medley as cowboy boots inexplicably fall to the stage. Entire scenes unfold in the dark. Songs you know as jubilant are sung through pained tears.
![](https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/08/Oklahoma.Sis_-800x533.jpg)
Why does it work? Accompanied by an on-stage bluegrass combo, the songs, obviously, are great. (A rousing “I Cain’t Say No” sung by the Black trans actor Sis manages to out-camp the original, bringing the house down.) But the direction by Daniel Fish is what matters here: it leans unflinchingly into the original story’s dark corners, even past the hokum of the main courting-ritual narrative between Curly and Laurey (Sean Grandillo and Sasha Hutchings).
A balance of the old and the new is hard to strike, especially with a bona fide classic of American musical theater. This new Oklahoma! is a fever dream in the best possible way, and one that should resonate with first-timers as well as longtime fans.