SHULER HENSLEY
REVIEWS
Oklahoma! Broadway production
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)