On this day in 1943, Oklahoma! premiered on Broadway and it was predicted to be a flop. Instead, it surprised everyone and set a Broadway record of 2,212 performances. The play featured the first collaboration and formation of the powerhouse team, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Rodgers and Hammerstein would go on to write the scores for over 40 Broadway musicals.
I confess that it has been a LONG time since I’ve seen Oklahoma! Our high school drama performed this play back in 1980-ish and I was in the background choir. My wife and I probably watched the play on television when we were first married. But the only two things I remember about the play were the opening song, Oh, What A Beautiful Morning!, and the title song. Other than that, it’s mostly a blank in my memory. The title song is immediately familiar.
O ——– klahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.
Where the waving wheat can sure smell sweet
when the wind comes right behind the rain.
“Of the reaction to the title song, “Oklahoma!,” actress Joan Roberts, the original Laurey, said, “The applause was so deafening, and it continued and continued. We repeated two encores, and we stood there, until they stopped applauding! And I didn’t think they ever would!”1
What struck me when I saw that today was the 83rd anniversary of the Oklahoma! premiere and I saw the lyrics of the song. I was reminded that March comes IN like a lion and OUT like a lamb. The “wind sweeping down the plain” pushes us right into a new month.
Isn’t that a metaphor for life?
We come into this world like a lion – well, a lion cub. We wail and cry until eventually, our wail becomes a roar. We have the strength and energy of youth. It isn’t long, though, before the lion’s roar becomes a dull growl. Before we know it, we are more lamb-like than we are lion-like. Our exit from this world is like that of a lamb, weak, without strength, and without any fight left in us.
Ecclesiastes 12:1-3 says, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; (2) While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: (3) In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened…” The passage goes on to describe those sunset years of our lives which grow increasingly placid and tepid.
Just as the earth experiences seasons, so do we. Some are strong and raging like the lion. Others are as gentle as the wind sweeping down the plan, blowing us into the next season of life.
Let the familiar words of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11a be a reminder to us of the seasons we all expereience. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: (2) A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; (3) A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; (4) A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; (5) A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; (6) A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; (7) A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; (8) A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace… (11) He hath made every thing beautiful in his time…”
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1https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/march-31/oklahoma-premieres-on-broadway
