Is "Oklahoma!" Actually a Horror Story?

Even if you aren't a fan of musicals, you'd probably recognize at least one of the songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein's first production Oklahoma!. Opening on Broadway in 1943, it went on to change the face of American theater and became one of the most celebrated and performed musicals in history. It tells the tempestuous love story of Curly McLain and Laurey Williams at the turn of the century when the Oklahoma territory was on the cusp of becoming a state. Curly is a young, hot cowboy who wants to take farm girl Laurey on a date to the nearby dance. Laurey decides instead to go with farm hand Jud Fry (we'll talk about him in a moment). Chaos, dancing, and accidental murder ensue. 

Less well-known is the play that Rodgers and Hammerstein based their musical on, Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs. Essentially, it tells the exact same story but with less plot points and dancing. Surprisingly there's almost the same amount of singing. Even though I am very familiar with the musical, I read the play for the first time this month. I was genuinely surprised how similar the two stories were, but certain dark themes in the musical are even stronger in the original version. 

The story could be completely lighthearted and romantic, which in many ways it is, if it wasn't for the character of Jud Fry (or Jeeter as he's known in the play). Jud/Jeeter runs the farm for Laurey and her Aunt Eller, but it quickly becomes clear that he has a very creepy infatuation with Laurey. To make Curley jealous, Laurey agrees to go with Jud/Jeeter to the dance but she's worried and confides to Aunt Eller that Jud/Jeeter makes her extremely uncomfortable. Now, if my niece told me that someone was making her uncomfortable to the point that she didn't feel safe being alone or opening her curtains at night I would be getting the police involved. But this is the early 1900s and Aunt Eller just tells her she's being dramatic. 

Now here's where it gets even creepier. Jud/Jeeter lives in the old smokehouse next to Aunt Eller's farmhouse. Curly, jealous about Laurey and wanting to know what makes Jud/Jeeter so great pays him a visit. They get into a very passive aggressive conversation where Curly tells Jud/Jeeter that if he hung himself people might actually like him for once. What we discover in this scene is that Jud/Jeeter basically has a porn addiction and hangs post cards of semi-nude women in the smokehouse. Also, he tells some highly disturbing stories he's heard of men killing their wives and girlfriends. One story in particular, which I'm 99% sure is only in the play, concerns a man who killed his wife after she got pregnant because he was so angry he couldn't have sex with her anymore. 

Somehow, it gets even worse. Jud/Jeeter takes Laurey to the dance and she makes it clear to him that she doesn't want to be alone. He basically tries to assault her before she frees herself and tells him he's fired. Vowing that she'll be sorry, he leaves. Skip forward a couple weeks. Curly and Laurey have overcome their differences and get married. Now here is where the plots of the musical and the play start separating. In the musical, the men of the area give Curly and Laurey a shivaree when Jud shows up and tries to attack Curly with a knife. They fight until Jud falls on his knife and dies. Curly wants to turn himself in to the law, but Aunt Eller manages to convince the local judge to do a quick trial and declare Curly innocent before he leaves with Laurey on their honeymoon and everybody except Jud lives happily ever after. 

In the play, Curly and Laurey sneak away from their wedding to avoid a shivaree; Laurey is frightened of the potential experience, and with good reason. If you don't know what a shivaree is, it was an event that happened after a wedding and right before the wedding night. Well-wishers would gather around the house and fire guns in the air while banging on pots and pans. The play gives this whole experience a much more sinister vibe. The men of the town pull Curly and Laurey from their house and force them to climb a haystack. Then they start screaming at them, making crude jokes about the children the couple will have and them having sex. Into this lovely scene walks Jeeter who starts lighting nearby haystacks on fire before trying to light the one that Curly and Laurey are on. Just like in the musical, Curly fights him and Jeeter falls on his own knife. In the play however, Curly ends up going to jail and the story ends ambiguously without the audience knowing for sure whether or not Curly will be held accountable. 

As I read the play, I realized that the core of this story is the horror that Laurey experiences. The musical may be all fun and games, with dark undertones, but Laurey's trauma is starkly brought to life in the play. Laurey is essentially stalked by someone who her aunt employs and would never consider firing because she can't run their farm and earn a living without him. When she finally tells someone about these concerns she's dismissed. Terrified that Jud/Jeeter might hurt her or Curly, she agrees to go with him to the dance even though being alone with him is her worst fear. When she finally does get to be with the man she loves, all of her fears come true. Jud/Jeeter almost kills Curly and actually succeeds in destroying their lives because Curly has to go to jail and could potentially be held responsible for Jud/Jeeter's death. Not only that, but Laurey's wedding night, which should be special, is made a mockery by the men of the town. She should be having a lovely moment with the man she loves and instead she's dragged out in her nightgown and forced to stand on a haystack where she almost dies. 

In college I was in a production of Oklahoma! and I remember that the guy who played Jud tried to make excuses for him and kept saying he wasn't actually a bad guy. At the time I was really hoping that this was just an acting choice to get in the character's head instead of a blatant misunderstanding of how one should treat women. But unfortunately I think he was viewing Jud/Jeeter as a victim. He made the argument that many could, which is that Jud/Jeeter is mistreated by people because he's lower on the social ladder and that if Laurey had only been nice to him and showed him a little bit of attention nothing bad would have happened. Of course, any woman who has been stalked, assaulted, raped, or killed by a man has probably been given the same advice.