‘Oklahoma!’ Review: Daniel Fish’s Brash New Dive Into Old Territory

Presented Off Broadway at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse last fall, Fish’s stunning revival, with its country & western musical stylings, rockabilly cats, chili at intermission and blood on the tracks, has found its perfect Broadway home at the in-the-round Circle. With the house lights turned up through most of the running time – when darkness occasionally enters, it’s total – Oklahoma! has us all at the barn dance. Everyone is complicit.

With racks of shotguns marking just about every wall of the theater – there are no walls on the expansive stage floor, around which the audience is seated – this immersive Oklahoma! is at once minimalist and explosive. Below shiny fringed streamers (later replaced by party lights) hanging from the ceiling, the modern-dress characters (chaps and jeans, cowboy hats, trucker caps, tank tops, flannel shirts and Stray Cat suits) move about and on top of long tables.