Rodgers and Hammerstein's musicals thrive on suburban, city stages

For 75 years, the musicals of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II have been ingrained into the soundtrack of America.

This month alone sees four “R & H” musicals on suburban and Chicago stages. A 75th anniversary production of “Oklahoma!” is now “sweeping down the plain” at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, while Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace is promising audiences “Some Enchanted Evening” during World War II with the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1949 musical “South Pacific.”

On the touring front, Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre is currently teaching the “Do-Re-Mi” fundamentals of “The Sound of Music” from 1959. Later this month at the same venue, “Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella” (a 2013 Broadway revamp of three different TV versions) will show what is magically “Impossible.”

Todd S. Purdum, a native of Macomb, Illinois, understands the continued popularity of Rodgers and Hammerstein's work and presents a dual biography in his just-published “Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution.”

While he acknowledges an ingrained ubiquity to Rodgers and Hammerstein in American culture, Purdum argues that “we take them for granted and forget how revolutionary so much of their work was.”

“It's hard to remember that nothing about their collaboration was a foreordained success,” Purdum said. “In the opening of the book, I talk about how late in life Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers would play a game in which they imagine what it would have been like if 'Oklahoma!' had been a failure.”

The Daily Herald asked Purdum, who will make an appearance at Drury Lane Theatre some time in May, to share insights about the four R & H musicals playing locally.

“Oklahoma!”

<b>Location:</b> Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire, (847) 634-0200 or marriotttheatre.com. Now through Sunday, June 10.

<b>Tickets:</b> $50 to $60

“It's hard to put ourselves back on that night on March 31, 1943, when it all started,” said Purdum about the Broadway opening of “Oklahoma!” “Tickets were going begging and producers had struggled to raise the budget for the show.”

“Oklahoma!” is now held up as the show that became the template for subsequent “integrated musicals” to seamlessly weave together story, song and dance. Yet this approach to a simple story of a farm girl courted by a cowboy was a huge risk.

“The show explores the innermost thoughts and feelings of the characters in a revelatory way that lets audiences see into them and their motivations,” Purdum said. “They weren't just characters concocted as an excuse to string out 15 hit songs.”

“South Pacific”

<b>Location:</b> Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, (630) 530-0111 or drurylanetheatre.com. Now through Sunday, June 17.

<b>Tickets:</b> $47-$62

Since World War II was all-consuming to Americans, Purdum said, “South Pacific” had a “ripped from the headlines” relevance. The musical's dual love stories touching on interracial relationships also pushed buttons.

Both liberals and conservatives zeroed in on the song “You've Got To Be Carefully Taught,” in which Lt. Cable sings how racism is a learned trait. Purdum said some left-leaning critics found the moment too “preachy,” while the Georgia state legislature passed a resolution condemning the song when a “South Pacific” tour played Atlanta.

“But Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers and (original novelist) James Michener all insisted that the message was central to the plot,” Purdum said. “Really it circles around the redemptive power of love to overcome prejudice.”

“Cinderella”

<b>Location:</b> Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St., Chicago, (800) 775-2000 or broadwayinchicago.com. Runs Friday, April 27, to Sunday, May 6.

<b>Tickets:</b> $15-$147 Rodgers and Hammerstein's original musical written for television was a major event when it was performed and broadcast live on March 31, 1957.

“It had an audience of 107 million people at a time when the population of the country was about 172 million,” Purdum said. “It was the most-watched event in the history of the planet to that point, which is a sign of the power and the reach of Rodgers and Hammerstein's appeal.”

“Cinderella” has been heavily revamped in subsequent TV adaptations in 1965 and 1997, plus its 2013 Broadway debut. “It's a remarkably durable property,” Purdum said.

“The Sound of Music”

<b>Location:</b> Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St., Chicago, (800) 775-2000 or broadwayinchicago.com. Now through Sunday, April 15.

<b>Tickets:</b> $42-$177

Rodgers and Hammerstein's final collaboration is unquestionably their best-known, according to Purdum. He credits the 1965 Academy Award-winning film version of “The Sound of Music” as the reason.

“It's the most-known, the most-seen iteration of a Rodgers and Hammerstein work worldwide, but in some ways it's the least representative,” Purdum said. “It's a somewhat bitter twist that so much of their reputation for being all sweetness and light and too saccharine for their own good is a result of 'The Sound of Music.' The bulk of their collaboration really embraced much more complex and nuanced and darker and serious themes.”

Purdum has also controversially suggested that Rodgers and Hammerstein were never close on a friendship level.

“They could be so in sync artistically and professionally, and yet have this personal distance or remove between them and occasional resentments,” Purdum said. “Yet they never rocked the boat and presented a completely unified front to the world and the results are there for all to see.”