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Oklahoma!
Broadway production |
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The verdict : This groundbreaking revival plays up the humanity of
Jud, the misfit portrayed by Marietta native Shuler Hensley. We all have a
shadow side. In the case of Nunn's stunningly reimagined "Oklahoma!"
his name is Jud Fry, the brooding outsider who lives in Aunt Eller's
smokehouse and pines for the beautiful Laurey, who's really in love with
the handsome Curly. As Jud, Marietta-born Shuler Hensley uses his magnificent
baritone and anguished demeanor to make the soot-smeared brute the
tortured center of this unrequited love story, which flickers from light
comedy to fierce tragedy (and then back again) with the crackling
intensity of a horsewhip. Honoring the story's darker impulses,
Hensley's Olivier Award-winning performance is a tour de force.
He's easily the best actor onstage, and his monumental Jud lives in a
coarse casket of a body --- a doomed figure with a heart, and a
voice, of gold. (Wendell Brock, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Riveting performance by Shuler
Hensley (who appeared in London) as Jud, the homicidal hired hand. Mr.
Hensley brings unsettling depth to a part more often tossed off as a
glowering conventional villain. His resonant baritone conveys myriad
shades of longing, despair and anger, turning (of all things) "Lonely
Room," Jud's solo, into the evening's must memorable
musical moment. In fact, this Jud is such a completely and complexly
realized character that he threatens to become the show's center. The
friend who accompanied me to "Oklahoma!" said that he
felt sorry for Jud at the end and that Jud probably should have wound up
with Laurey, which was surely not Rodgers and Hammerstein's intention.
It is nonetheless to the production's credit that it has room for a
performance like Mr. Hensley's to blossom. Everything he does here is
justified by the text, just as the darker sexual element elucidated by
Mr. Nunn and Ms. Stroman is definitely there to be tapped. (Ben
Brantley, New York Times)
Re-creating his role from the London production is Shuler Hensley, an
American actor with a deep baritone full of exciting currents. His Jud
Fry remains a revelation, by no means a stock villain but a
disturbingly effective portrait of a man who is tortured by the dreams of
love that are sweet balm to those who can more easily turn them into
reality. His visceral, even violent "Lonely Room" has an
emotional force that nags at you for the duration of the evening. (Charles
Isherwood, Variety.com)
The performance that most conveys the reality underlying the show is
Shuler Hensley's as Jud. He makes
Jud's yearnings as palpable as his crudeness, and he sings the score's
most groundbreaking number, "Lonely Room," with
visceral strength. (Howard Kissel, New York Daily News)
Shuler Hensley, who plays Jud, brings this troubled man to life. Jud
is the perennial Odd Man Out, the loner who finds sanctuary only in his "Lonely
Room.'' He's a drifter, neither a farmer nor a cowman -- as
Hammerstein neatly divides the two opposing forces in this tale of the
Oklahoma territory just before it became a state. Shuler, who
originated the role of Jud in the London revival, has the authority
-- and the voice -- to give the man credibility (Michael Kuchwara, AP
Drama Critic, The Nando Times)
In many ways, the outstanding performance comes from a magnificently
surly Shuler Hensley as
the pathologically repressed farmhand Jud Fry - who longs for the pure
farm girl, Laurey - partly because the depth of his characterization is
so unexpected. (Clive Barnes, New York Post)
Shuler Hensley brings a welcome and overpowering force
to the farmhand Jud Fry. (Thomas Burke, Talkin' Broadway)
Shuler Hensley’s Jud is a dangerously unstable, pathetic outcast, a
powerfully sung, unforgettable
portrayal. (Ken Mandelbaum, Broadway.com)
.....Shuler Hensley's majestically haunting Jud Fry.....Finally,
what we remember is the outcast Jud, transformed by Hensley from a mean
joke to a big, sad, scary, horny man who holds his beloved Laurey as
Steinbeck's Lenny loved his pet mouse to death. In contrast, the good guys
seem like clowns. (Linda Winer, Newsday.com)
Big, brawny Shuler Hensley brings not only sullen menace to the
lumbering farmhand Jud Fry,
whose lust for Laurey leads to a fatal conflict with Curly, but also
resonant operatic tones that deepen the sardonic comedy of "Poor
Jud Is Daid" and the creepy empathy of his solo "Lonely
Room." (Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle)
Shuler Hensley reprises his acclaimed London turn as Jud Fry,
creating a burly, dirty figure with a broad streak of naivete that makes
him seem terribly dangerous. Hensley, whose singing is plenty rich, gives
Fry the seething, unchecked mind of a wicked teenage boy. (Nelson
Pressley, Washington Post)
The hulking hired man Jud Fry (is) played with lurking menace and dark
pathos by Shuler Hensley....Wilson
and the remarkable Henley, shaggy and stubbled and unscrubbed, give this
"Oklahoma!" its strongest presences. (Malcolm Johnson, Hartford
Courant)
Justin Bohon stakes his claim to a Tony nomination with his very
up-to-date rendition of “Kansas City,” but he’s going to have
serious competition from Shuler Hensley, who plays the dangerously
ferocious Jud Fry. The American Hensley won the Olivier Award in that
category for his performance of the role in England, and his
emotionally wrenching version of “Lonely Room” is one of the
show’s singular moments. Because Hensley invests Jud with so
much humanity, the character becomes something more than a mere villain;
this makes the battle for Laurey’s affections between the darkly
appealing farmhand and the good-natured, cocky cowboy a complex experience
for the audience. (Barbara & Scott Siegel, TheaterMania)
Wilson proves a capable foil to Shuler Hensley, the radiantly
brooding actor who plays Jud, Curly's slimy nemesis....Susan
Stroman's vital, imaginative choreography is another asset..... her
darkly sexual Dream Ballet highlights the tensions between Laurey, Curly
and Jud with chilling intensity. (Elysa Gardner, USA Today)
Jud - outstanding, operatically scaled Shuler Hensley. (Michael
Phillips, Chicago Tribune)
Acting and singing honors go to the third lead, Shuler Hensley who
portrays the nominal villain of the piece, Jud with mesmerizing
darkness and a thrillingly operatic baritone. (Elyse Sommer, Curtain
Up Internet Theater Magazine)
The darkness in the production is largely carried by Shuler Hensley's
impressive Jud Fry. Hensley gives the sexually tormented outcast an
almost Iago-like sense of evil. (Richard Ouzounian, Toronto Star)
Shuler Hensley, another British import (and an Olivier Award winner for
his performance), makes a truly scary Jud, and his imposing presence
gives the show a constant and definite tension. The romantic
triangle among Curly, Laurey and the tragic Jud (is) dealt with in a
serious and adult manner. Hensley's beautifully sung performance as Jud
reveals the character's vulnerability as well as his danger, and his
"Lonely Room" solo number is a highlight. (Frank Scheck, Hollywood
Reporter)
Lurking lasciviously, however, is Jud, the ostracised brute who yearns for
Laurey and serves as the show's metaphor for malevolence. Shuler
Hensley portrays him with a gripping intensity, and for the
bulk of the play's problematic Act I, Jud is the most human character on
stage. (Entertainment Weekly)
Among the performers, Shuler Hensley is unforgettable. A strapping
actor who resembles Orson Welles in his prime, he turns Jud Fry into a
tormented soul whose yearning for Laurey and rivalry with Curly
arouse not only our fear but our sympathy. (Barbara D.
Phillips, Wall Street Journal)
....top-drawer cast, led by..... Shuler Hensley as Jud. Hensley's Jud has
the added attraction of his big, deep baritone voice, reminiscent of stars
Alfred Drake and Howard Keel. For his earlier work in Oklahoma! in
London, Hensley received the 1998 Olivier Award, Britain's version of a
Tony Award, as outstanding feature actor in a musical. Hensley
undoubtedly will be high in the running of potential Tony nominees
in this category this Broadway season......Hensley's vocal
magnificence. (Ward Morehouse III, Nando Media)
The more complex interpretation of Jud Fry, bitingly sung and
unsettlingly acted by Shuler Hensley, is to be hailed. (John
Simon, New York Metro)
Most vivid is Jud Fry, the
reclusive farmhand who has a morbid fascination with the heroine, Laurey.
This isn't the stock villain in a prairie full of nice folks that Jud so
often is. In the gripping performance of the hulking Shuler Hensley, Jud
is frighteningly knowable: a mentally ill man who seems capable of
unspeakable deeds, yet is curiously touching in his loneliness and
inability to make contact with other people. When he bids against the
cowboy Curly for Laurey's lunch basket at the town social, the scene
achieves undreamed-of drama. We want Curly to win - this is his first
declared expression of his feelings for Laurey - but there's something so
desperate and pitiable about Jud bidding everything he's earned for even
this peripheral contact with Laurey that, against our will, we feel for
him, too. Hensley, with his deep, mighty voice, also makes Jud's moment of
introspection, the usually overlooked "Lonely Room," into one of
the most riveting songs in the show. (Robert Feldberg, Bergen Record)
Shuler Hensley,
another London import, gives a standout performance as the menacing
Jud, the violent farm hand with his eye on Laurey. His solo
number, "Lonely Room," is now one of the emotional high points
of the show. (Adam Feldman, Show Business Online)
The best performers are Mr Hensley as a potent, scary Jud.....(Margo
Jefferson, New York Times)
Which brings
us to Jud, played by Shuler Hensley, who made waves in London and
certainly does so again here. Taking what was a semi-comical role
originally played by Howard Da Silva (and revived in darker tones by
Martin Vidnovic in a fine 1979 revival, directed by Hammerstein's son
William), Hensley makes the lonely Jud the most emotionally
affecting character in the show. (Jacques Le Sourd, The Journal
News)
Shuler Hensley brings depth and psychological truth to his role as Jud,
the malevolent and twisted farmhand. (Isa Goldberg, WPKN.org)
Jud can seem little more than a prop villain in a melodrama, but Hensley
shapes a poignant figure whose twisted malice owes much to
forces he cannot understand and the abuse the world has heaped on him.
(Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Enquirer)
...the only person who seems real is Jud, played by Shuler Hensley, who
along with Gabrielle is the one member of the original cast to cross the
Atlantic. Hensley's Jud out-Steigers Rod Steiger from the movie
version, but he makes him seem as much sinned against as sinning.
(Ed Siegel, Boston Globe)
Shuler Hensley creates a brooding Jud Fry,
tamping down the character's odiousness with a pinch of pathos. (Russell
Bouthiller, Broadway Beat)
As for Jud, he's a menacing psychopath in a powerful performance by
Hensley, an American reprising his role from the London production.
The hired hand for Laurey and Aunt Eller is twisted and pathetic, as if he
stumbled out of a different show from one with soaring melodies such as
Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' and People Will Say We're in Love. The
confrontation between him and Curly in the smokehouse, with Pore Jud Is
Daid and Lonely Room, is darkly perverse in the tradition of Sherwood
Anderson's short stories of grotesque Americana, Winesburg, Ohio. (John
Fleming, St Petersburg Times)
Shuler Hensley not only is convincing in the acting department as the
resentful, troubled Jud Fry,
but he is deeply moving singing his big number, "Lonely
Room." The treatment of Jud is more melancholy than usual, which
brings out a dark, sad juxtaposition between the lot of a working hand
like Jud and the upbeat others. (William Wolf, Wolf Entertainment
Guide)
Shuler Hensley just about steals the show as the lumbering Jud.
(Richmond Shepard, Lively-Arts.com)
The nefarious Jud, who lusts after Laurey, is decidedly less creepy than
usual. Shuler Hensley acts and sings a complex and isolated character
more to be pitied than scorned. (Gerald Rabkin, culturevulture.net)
The
performance of the night...comes from Shuler Hensley
who is Jud Fry, the menacing hired hand with a thing for guns and dirty
pictures, a mean streak with hints of a violent past and a fixation on the
same Laurey who is Aunt Eller’s niece and the object of Curly’s
intentions. It isn’t that Oscar Hammerstein II didn’t give the
character enough depth that makes Hensley’s performance so notable. No,
the elements of fixation, deep frustration, anti-social isolation and
barely controlled violent tendencies are all there in the text. But
Hensley brings them to the fore with such heft, such balance and so many
elegantly proper tiny touches that he makes Jud Fry a revelation. And he
sings the part just about as well as I’ve ever heard it. (Brad Hathaway,
Online Broadway Correspondent, Musical Stages)
Shuler Hensley.....there couldn’t be a better foil for the piece. Hensley‘s
Fry is a rich mixture of hateful and pitiable that sets a new
standard for the role. (Brad Hathaway, Potomac Stages)
Among the great achievements
in this sparkling new Oklahoma! is the performance
given by Shuler Hensley as the dark, brooding Jud Fry, who, along
with his competitor Curly, falls in love with Laurey. Hensley, who won a
2002 Tony for his role, was also given the prestigious Olivier Award for
his critically acclaimed performance. The song "Pore Jud Is Daid,"
sung in a duet with Patrick Wilson, is outstanding. But it is the solo
"Lonely Room," sung with a desperate, despondent cry by
Hensley, that is so moving it finds many in the audience sobbing into
their programs. It was probably this song and Hensley’s
characterization that led the chief critic at the New York Times,
Ben Brantley, to single him out and headline his critique "This Time
a Beautiful Mornin’ with a Dark Side" in a review from March 22,
2002. (Robert Heide and John Gilman, Oklahoma Today)
This production was done by British producer Cameron MacIntosh and
several members of the cast also appeared in the London Company,
including Shuler Hensley who played Jud Fry brilliantly. I
saw him in the part in London. The role is pivotal but small, with only
one song for the character. But Hensley builds a whole scary,
menacing, yet sorry, even morbid world around him, right down to his
walk. This Jud is physically powerful looking and wide in girth,
all of which makes him more menacing. Yet his gait when he walks across
the stage in his boots is short and cautiously deliberate, more like a
frightened child approaching a reproachful parent. (David Patrick
Columbia, New York Social Diary.com)
Revival
of Oklahoma! exhilarates audiences anew :
Twenty years after seeing a scaled-down dinner theater production of
"Oklahoma!" near Huntington, W.Va., what sticks with me was the
oddity of seeing a superb actor-singer named Ray Gaspard stealing the
show. He wasn't Curly or even Will Parker, but Jud Fry, the one dark cloud
in an eminently sunny masterwork. It's hardly Jud's show, but while the
other performers were having fun doing a great musical at a remote
playhouse where only the locals would see them — somewhere between the
home fries and the "rare round roast of beef, au jus," Gaspard
was tackling a supporting role hammer and tong. Damned if something
comparable doesn't happen at Broadway's Gershwin Theatre in Trevor Nunn's
revival of "Oklahoma!," a re-creation of the production Nunn and
choreographer Susan Stroman staged in London four years ago that has just
been handed seven Tony Award nominations.
Shuler Hensley, as the stormy-souled Jud, lassos every one of his several
scenes with vulnerability and intensity, delivering Jud as a scruffy
outsider so ripped up with loneliness and longing for the virginal Laurey
that he'll do anything to win her. Or take her. Or else.
He's more than surly. He's psychotic. He's so upfront with
pain.........what a one-two punch this "Oklahoma!" makes for
Hensley, who was also one of the great assets as the slow elder brother in
the Pittsburgh-made film "The Bread, My Sweet."
(Ed Blank, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
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