PLACE: Indian territory (now Oklahoma)
TIME: Just after the turn of the last century, 1900’sACT ONE
It is a radiant summer morning. Aunt Eller sits out on her farm, churning butter and looking out over the horizon. Curly, a local ranch hand, comes to call with a serenade: Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’. Eller’s Niece, Laurey, and Curly are smitten with one another, but both are too proud and stubborn to admit it. When Curly grandly offers to take Laurey to the Box Social that evening, she doubts he can escort her in proper style (The Surrey with the Fringe on Top).
Jud Fry, the hired hand, lets it be known that he intends to ask Laurey to the dance, and she, intimidated by Jud, is too frightened to turn him down. Curly, hurt by Laurey’s apparent ambivalence, invites Aunt Eller to ride with him instead. At the train station, another cow boy, Will Parker, receives a hero’s welcome upon his return from Kansas City. While there Will won enough prize money at the rodeo - $50! - to earn the hand of Ado Annie, whose strict Pa, Andrew Carnes, said Will couldn’t marry his daughter without cash up front. But Will has a new problem: in his absence Annie has taken up with the exotic Persian peddler man, Ali Hakim. Annie confides to Laurey that she can’t choose between Will and Ali (I Cain’t say No). Towards the end of the day, folks begin to gather at Aunt Eller’s on their way to the social, where Curly is et upon by a shrieking flirt, Gertie Cummings. The other girls gather round Laurey, buzzing with the news, but she airily tosses their concerns away (Many a New Day). Meanwhile, even if Ado Annie can’t choose between Will and Ali Hakim, her father sees no such dilemma; as far he’s concerned, Ali’s sweet talk to his daughter amounts to nothing less than a proposal of marriage. In case Ali doesn’t get the message, Carnes delivers it with a shotgun. Ali is trapped (It’s a Scandal! It’s a Outrage!). Laurey and Curly remain tentative with each other, but they admit that folks are beginning to talk (People Will Say We’re in Love). Curly questions Laurey about her plans to go with Jud to the Social but can’t seem to change her mind. Stung, Curly decides to visit Jud down at the smokehouse where the hired hand lives. Curly tries a novel approach with the unpopular Jud: people may not like you while you’re alive, he reasons, but think of how much they’ll weep for you when you’re dead! (Pore Jud is Daid). But the real reason behind Curly’s visit is soon obvious: Laurey. Both men want her, and both men are ready to fight for her. After Curly departs, Jud thinks it through – Laurey is even worth killing for. Jud is desperate for a woman, desperate enough to escape his Lonely Room. Earlier, Laurey had let the Peddler Man sell her a vial of smelling salts that he claimed was nothing less than the “Elixir of Egypt”, a potion to help clarify her thoughts. Now, fraught by her feelings for Curly and her fear of Jud, Laurey gives the Elixir a try (Out of My Dreams). In a swirl of dream images (Ballet), Laurey sees herself marrying Curly. Jud invades the wedding; he carries her off, thwarts Curly’s attempts to rescue her, and, after a horrific struggle, kills Curly. Laurey awakens from her nightmare with a start… and finds Jud offering his arm, ready to escort her to the Box Social.ACT TWO
Despite plenty of division between farmers and cowmen, the community has come together to raise money for a new schoolhouse. High-spirited and competitive, the different factions meet that night at the Box Social where they manage to dance a little – and fight a lot (The Farmer and The Cowman). Funding for the schoolhouse is earned by bids placed on each of the picnic baskets prepared by the farm girls. As the auction begins, under the stern eye and sturdy gravel of Aunt Eller, Ali Hakim has a transaction of his own to see through. In order to manoeuvre his way out of marrying Ado Annie, Ali contrives to pay $50 for all the gifts Will bought in Kansas City. With cash in hand, Will can once again claim Ado Annie for himself.
The crowd is ready to bid on the final two hampers – Ado Annie’s and Laurey’s. Will trumps everyone by bidding his $50 on Annie’s hamper; Carnes mocks him because, with the money now going towards the schoolhouse, Will is broke once more. Ali, who’s need to remain a bachelor is greater than any bid, swallows hard and outbids Will by $1. Ali gets Annie’s hamper, but Will gets Annie. One picnic basket left. Curly and Jud outlast the other bidders and are clearly determined to outlast each other. It’s a showdown, and as their bids climb higher and higher it isn’t about Laurey’s hamper anymore; it’s about Laurey herself. Each man gives up every penny he has; Curly even sells his saddle, his horse and his gun. In the end Curly outbids Jud, though the tension between the two men isn’t resolved. Will Parker gets Ado Annie alone. Now that he has earned her hand, he reasons, he gets to lay down the law. His rules on matrimony are very clear; It’s All Er Nothin’. Annie will play by his rules – her way. As the two lovebirds chase each other off, a more troubled duo approaches. Jud Fry with Laurey, whom he has managed to steer away from the party. Face to face, Jud tries to tell Laurey what she means to him. When his clumsy attempts fail, he turns to threats. Angrily, Laurey summons her courage and fires Jud, warning him never to set foot on her property again. But once alone, she breaks down, calling tearfully for Curly. He comes along and consoles her; terror turns to relief and joy, as the two lovers finally admit what everyone has long known (People Will Say We’re in Love: reprise). Several weeks later, a wedding supper is in progress at Aunt Eller’s. Curly and Laurey “couldn’t pick a better time to start in life”, Eller declares, since the Indian Territory is about to join the Union as a brand new state, Oklahoma. Matrimony is in the air: Will and Annie are hitched and even Ali has been snared – by Gertie Cummings, who plans to rein in her husbands days on the open road. As the wedding night unfolds the menfolk engage Curly and Laurey in a raucous, if harmless local tradition called a “Shivoree”. But good fun turns deadly serious when an unwanted guest, Jud Fry stumbles onto the scene. Drunk and angry, he becomes dangerous as he takes on Curly, switchblade in hand. Their fight implied in the smokehouse, and conjured in Laurey’s dream, now becomes a reality. A parry, a fall, and Jud collapses on his own knife. A short time later he is dead. Curly is arrested, and charged with Jud Fry’s murder. Out of necessity, a frontier community is often required to make it’s own laws, set it’s own terms of justice. No one wants Curly to spend his wedding night in jail, and so an impromptu trial is held at Aunt Eller’s farm. Curly is acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. The prisoner is free to commence his honeymoon. The sun begins to rise on another radiant morning. Curly and Laurey ride off to start their new life together, serenaded by friends, family and neighbours (Finale Ultimo)>
