Oklahoma

Wolverine can sing? We take it for granted now, having seen Hugh Jackman sing and dance his way through a couple of Broadway shows and a job hosting the Oscars, but nobody knew he could do it when he first appeared on the London stage as Curly in this classic Rogers and Hammerstein musical. Five minutes into the first number, all doubts about his ability can be thrown out the window. What makes this DVD more than just a pretty soundtrack, though, is the excellent way that director Trevor Nunn embraces the theatricality of the experience. He doesn’t try to make a movie version of Oklahoma in the traditional sense, and he isn’t trying to give you the feeling that you are in the audience watching the show. Instead he uses the camera like it was another actor on the stage. It not only makes the show’s corniest numbers (The Surrey With a Fringe on Top) more palatable, but adds a depth to the dramatic tension to the story’s dark subplot involving the violent handyman Jud (Shuler Hensley).