SHULER HENSLEY
REVIEWS
Oklahoma! Film of the London production
But the stand-out supporting performance - in England, on Broadway and here - is Shuler Hensley as dirty, dangerous Jud Fry. Hensley makes Jud's frustration and isolation understandable, humanizing the character, especially in the song "Lonely Room." Hensley won both the Olivier and Tony awards for his brutish, complex portrayal. (David Cuthbert, The Times-Picayune)
The real discovery, however, is Shuler Hensley as Jud Fry. His performance is both dangerous and pathetic, symbolic of the danger and darkness that Nunn has successfully prised from beneath the musicals seemingly pristine surface. (RT, Moviemail)
On Broadway, the best reviews went to the other performer repeating his London performance, Shuler Hensley, whose pathetic misfit of a Jud Fry remains a memorable creation. (Ken Mandelbaum, Broadway.com)
Nunn managed to explore the sadness and scariness of hired hand Jud Fry without taking away from the show's upbeat charm. Jud (Shuler Hensley, who won a Tony Award for his performance) is menacing and creepy but at times quite sympathetic. As the shunned outsider who lusts after the heroine Laurey (Josefina Gabrielle), he is humanized. (Joanne Ostrow, The Denver Post)
Hensley, who won a Tony for his supporting role, is intense and frightening, yet not alienating, as Jud, the rough and volatile ranch hand who battles Curly for the attentions of Laurey. Hensley radiates in his role as it's presented on TV. It's a tough performance to beat......The hand-to-hand combat seems anything but staged (credit Jackman and Hensley for that as well), and the "Dream Ballet" sequence, as filmed for television, is pure poetry. (David Bianculli, New York Daily News)
As portrayed by Shuler Hensley, who took both Olivier and Tony Awards for his performance, Jud becomes strangely sympathetic - intimidating and dangerous, yes, but surprisingly understandable. (Public Broadcasting Atlanta)
But the most interesting revelation in this version is grungy old Jud, the farm hand who lives in the smoke-house with his collection of primitive soft-core porno. In the movie, Jud (played by Rod Steiger) is evil and creepy, with no redeeming qualities. But in this new production, with Jud played artfully by Shuler Hensley, the character takes on a yearning pathos. We see him not as "the enemy" out to ruin Curly and Laurey's wedding night, but as a mournful dreamer who knows that girls like Laurey never come running blissfully into the arms of guys like Jud. (Tom Shales, The Washington Post)
The secret weapons in Nunn's production are Hugh Jackman and Shuler Hensley, who play Curly and Jud respectively. The two represent opposite extremes of good and evil, but Hensley, who won a Tony for his performance, makes Jud both terrifying and achingly vulnerable. (Terry Byrne, Boston Herald.com)
More than in the original conception of the show, Aunt Eller (Maureen Lipman) and bad guy Jud Fry (Shuler Hensley) are essential ingredients. Jud's an outsider whom we can't help pitying -- a hired hand doomed to loneliness and ostracism in spite of his efficiency and hard work. (
Shuler Hensley as Jud is a formidable presence
while giving the role of the outcast handyman some humanity.
(Rob Lowman, San Bernardino Sun)
The supporting cast is terrific, most notably Shuler Hensley's scary but surprising sympathetic portrayal of Jud Fry. (Hensley would win a Tony when the revival moved to New York.) (Charlie McCollum, The Mercury News)
The other breakout performance is Shuler Hensley’s as Jud Fry, the creepy farmhand who lives down in the smokehouse on Laurey’s farm and has a wall full of photos of naked ladies. At the end, of course, Jud gets his deserts and Curly gets the girl; nonetheless, Hensley took Olivier and Tony Awards for the London production. (Iris Fanger, The Boston Phoenix)
As for the “new” Jud Fry, well, he is magnificent. He is an actor named Shuler Hensley, and he gave the role a simmering hostility that conveyed a fierce defiance of a world controlled by “the pretty people.” (Gary Carden, Smoky Mountain News)
As the outcast Jud, Shuler Hensley unleashes startling emotional depth and complexity, investing his Lonely Room aria with brooding power. Hensley's pitiable yet menacing Jud won him both an Olivier and a Tony award. (Everett Evans, Houston Chronicle)
Shuler Hensley embodies the character of Jud, filling him with despair and a creepy foreboding that elevate his status beyond that of oafish villain. (Stephen Peithman, Stage Directions)