Going into the Ides of March, Philadelphia is experiencing a banner week of theater openings. And though one big show is not necessarily more impressive than the other (all are equally smashing), the reinvention of Oklahoma – the Rogers & Hammerstein classic brought into the present with Black, Brown and White actors, at the Kimmel Cultural Campus’ Forrest Theater until March 20 – is something of a thrill ride.
“Until you’re in the middle of it, you just don’t know how amazing Oklahoma truly is,” said Christopher Bannow, an actor with a handsome resume (including a turn in The Elephant Man) who plays the villainous Jud Fry in Oklahoma. This menacing character in its current iteration – a musical painted in expressionistic brushstrokes and “contemporary naturalism” (according to Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones) – is re-imagined in the present day for his vulnerabilities. The things that made him an evil character in past settings now, “is given new life,” said Bannow, “rather than the usual black-and-white portrayals of the past.”
Along with utilizing a more diverse cast of Black, Brown, disabled actors and trans actors to go with Rogers & Hammerstein’s White shade of old, dressing them in contemporary outfits (as opposed to walking surreys with the fringe on top), and delving deeply into the subconscious of their characters (a la Jud Fry’s inner being), this Oklahoma is as intimate and intricate as its plains are wide and high.
Loving a shift in attitude and latitude does not, in any way, mean that I don’t have room for the old school and adore traditionalism.
Take Frank Ferrante who has forever portrayed Groucho Marx in one show of his own devising or another for something close to thirty years. That’s when this one-time drama student at the University of Southern California was discovered by the legendary comedian’s son Arthur Marx, who penned Groucho: A Life in Revue, for off-Broadway. Ferrante first re-created the role of vaudeville and film’s most caustic, witty character – greasepaint mustache, eyebrows and all – for Philadelphia’s Walnut’s stage in the 1992-1993 season.
This time around, Ferrante’s Groucho hits the 2022 Walnut Theatre’s Mainstage Saturday, March 12 at 2 p.m. – the first time the Walnut will present this show as a matinee. “I have loved transforming in Groucho every time that I have performed as him,” Ferrante told me the last time he played Mr. Marx in Philadelphia. “And though there are certain aspects of the character whose marks I have to hit – the leers and the eye-brow wiggling – I always make sure there’s something new to play every time. Groucho is evolving.”
I should say he is.
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