I saw a production of "Oklahoma!" yesterday, which made me think: Is Oklahoma! a problem play? A problem play is pretty much any play that has aged badly, or contains really outdated concepts.
We have the A plot and the B plot. The B plot is a lot of fun. It's a love triangle between a dim-witted cowboy, his girlfriend who unapologetically enjoys sleeping around and the traveling salesman who wants to get out of the triangle, but keeps getting pulled back in.
The A plot starts out light-hearted, with a Beatrice and Benedict set-up of a boy and girl (Curly and Laurie) who love one another but are too proud to admit it, so they have to pretend they don't. This takes an ugly turn when the girl hooks up with Jud, a psycho killer.
Curly's solution to this is to go to the psycho killer's house and convince him to commit suicide.
What!?
Meanwhile, Laurie has a dream where the psycho killer kills Curly, but in real life, they finally get rid of the psycho killer when Curly stabs him to death (but accidental-like, because Curly is a good guy.).
Then the ensemble sings a song about how wonderful things will be when Oklahoma becomes a state.
What!?
This is crazy!
Let's explore the B plot first. This should arguably have been the A plot if only because the great characters. Had Broadway ever had a heroine who enjoyed sleeping around who's not punished for it? TV wouldn't have characters like this until Sue Ann Nivens in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," all Broadway heroines were virtuous. Ado Annie came along, and she had no problem sleeping with different men. She thought it was kind of funny.
Now, the problematic A plot. Why would Laurie agree to take Jud to the big social if she's deathly afraid of him? Are there only two men in the whole county? So the only way to get rid of him is to murder him? And everyone's OK with it? We have stalking laws now, but in 1943 stalking was just a nuisance that could only be solved by a knife fight where the hero accidentally kills the villain?
A competitor for Laurie's affection who was sane would have ratcheted the drama down a little but would have been more compatible with the light-hearted B plot.
Think of "Cheers" where Sam and Diane loved one another, but didn't want to admit it, then the erudite Frasier comes along and everyone has to step up their game. It was hilarious and it worked. Now picture Frasier being a psycho killer who just wants to rape Diane, but fortunately Sam accidentally kills him with his car. Wow, that doesn't work at all.
Another problem with this play is more logistical. The script requires that at the end, the lovers ride off in a surrey with the fringe on top. This is nothing you can pick up at a costume-and-prop store. When my high school did Oklahoma! we had borrowed a surry from a nearby high school who had just done Oklahoma, and we in turn gave it to another high school who was about to do Oklahoma! I think there's one surrey in the whole country that just keeps getting passed around.
One more note, "Friends" would later steal the gag of the beautiful woman with the terrible laugh with Chandler's on and off girlfriend Janice.
