An `Oklahoma' for our times; classic musical gets an update.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

You may think you've seen "Oklahoma," says Ginger Thatcher. But if you haven't seen the new theatrical version that Cameron Mackintosh, brought to the stage in London, you haven't seen the play at all.

Thatcher is choreographer to the new traveling production of that new "Oklahoma," which opens Tuesday for a three-day run at the Hult Center.

And it's a much grittier show than the 1950s movie and the 1940s musical we all know.

``The women are much stronger,'' the choreographer says. ``They are portrayed with more strength and more realistically. These people actually live on farms. They wear overalls instead of pretty little dresses with bows.''

The women in this Oklahoma get in on the brawling, too.

``That is kind of fun,'' Thatcher says. "You can have a new take on an old theme and bring a little more reality to it.

``The women fight in this version. In the original, they are off on the side, singing and laughing while the men are fighting."

The men are more down to earth as well. "They have to look like rugged cowboys," Thatcher says. "And the look of the show is that they didn't have access to scissors and lots of things to get themselves all groomed. There is a slightly shaggy look to them.''

Most everyone is familiar with the 1943 musical, which tells the story of a romantic triangle - Laurey can't make up her mind between cowboy Curly and the darkly pathological farmhand Jud - amid the tension between ranchers and farmers in frontier Oklahoma. It became a movie in 1955.

The songs are part of the American backdrop: "Surrey With the Fringe on Top," "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," "People Will Say We're in Love" and, of course, "Oklahoma" itself.

The original Broadway production had choreography by Agnes de Mille, who made history with a dream ballet sequence during the show.

In the new show, which was choreographed in London by Susan Stroman, the singers themselves dance the ballet.

This made casting a bit challenging, says Thatcher, who worked with Stroman in creating the look of the traveling production.

"This version really does flesh out more of the underlying basis of `Oklahoma,' ' she says. "Everyone says it's about two people fighting over a girl going to a box social. Well, no. Curly and Jud represent two sides of society that really couldn't stand each other."

Trevor Nunn, who directed the London production at the Royal National Theatre, went back to the text of "Green Grow the Lilacs," the novel on which the musical was based, to understand the full drama of the story. That gives the musical much of its solid feel, Thatcher says.

"Anne Bancroft said it best," she says. "I had the opportunity to meet her when she came to see `Oklahoma' on Broadway. I grabbed her and brought her backstage. She looked at me and said, `I realize I have never seen `Oklahoma' until tonight.' '

MUSICAL PREVIEW

Oklahoma!

What: The classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical in a traveling show based on the Cameron Mackintosh production in London

Where: Hult Center's Silva Concert Hall, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and next Thursday, April 6

Tickets: $27.50 to $47.50, through the Hult box office, 682-5000

CAPTION(S):

Michael Zygo plays Will Parker in ``Oklahoma'' in Eugene next week. Daniel Snyder Daniel Snyder Jessica Lavin sings and dances the role of Laurey, the female lead in ``Oklahoma!''