Oklahoma!
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I have never seen better acting
in a musical.....Shuler Hensley takes the audience into a heart of
lonely darkness as Jud Fry.
(Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph)
Shuler Hensley is another name to
watch : his horribly frustrated Jud Fry very nearly steals the show.
(John Gross, Sunday Telegraph)
As Jud, Shuler Hensley provides the most powerful and
most intricate performance of the evening : tormented and
tormenting, sitting alone in his shack 'like a cobweb on a shelf'.
(Susannah Clapp, Observer)
Magnificent singing and acting performance from Shuler
Hensley as Curly's rival, the murderous farm hand. The thickset
Hensley bristles with menace. He exudes aggression, erotic pain and
despair in the sweep and surges of his fraught bass voice. (Nicholas de
Jongh, Evening Standard)
Even sunny musicals need darkness, and that is ably
supplied by Shuler Hensley as Jud Fry, the surly, burly hired hand who
sees himself as Curly's rival for Laurey......the excellent Hensley
gives Jud's spoken declaration of love genuine feeling. (Robert
Hewison, Sunday Times)
Jud's presence (is) lent superb malevolence by Shuler
Hensley. (Dominic Cavendish, Time Out)
Most of all, it's with the swarthy, lumbering Jud Fry that
Nunn deepens the show. He's helped by a performance of compelling
dignity by Shuler Hensley. Nunn restores 'Lonely Room', an
operatic number left out of the film, and the show's unsettling new
orchestrations underline the character's self-disgust. Hensley's damaged
figure wins our sympathy. (Robert Butler, Independent on Sunday)
The most famous part of the show is Laurey's 15-minute
dream ballet which closes the first act. Previously, dancers have taken
over from the actors in the lead roles to perform the central love
triangle. Here, there is no such disruption because the actors dance their
roles themselves, which pays enormous dramatic dividends. Chief among them
is the fleshing out of the farmhand, Jud. Normally he is portrayed as such
a psychopath, it is as if Norman Bates were suing for her affections. The
massive Shuler Hensley not only sings up a storm and dances the role
with finesse, he finds acres of sadness beneath his disfiguring
anger and stupidity. (David Lister, Independent)
Jud, much the most compelling character in the piece and
here excellently played by Shuler Hensley, is a darkly
obsessive figure whose love for Laurey is genuine. (Michael Billington, Guardian)
Shuler Hensley's brooding, tragic Jud defines a
murderous, but fleetingly tender, bad apple in the barrel. (Michael
Coveney, Daily Mail)
Shuler Hensley, glowering and scowling, nearly walks
away with the show. (David Nathan, Jewish Chronicle)
The casting is superb......Shuler Hensley as Jud Fry,
a misfit desperately in need of care in the community - poor Jud. (Bill
Hagerty, News of the World)
In a performance of tremendous power, Shuler Hensley's
Jud is a deeply disturbed, menacing presence. Sweaty, shifty
and dangerously explosive, he's the serpent in the paradise of Oklahoma.
(Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday)
Trevor Nunn takes the book seriously and this is
especially true of the portrayal of Jud, who is no cardboard villain but a
sad, mentally unbalanced, sexually frustrated figure. The seriousness
pays off when he is as well acted and as well sung as he is here by
Shuler Hensley. The auction, excellently paced, has real drama as he
and Curly, foolishly, bid all they have for the woman they love. (Robert
Tanitch, Plays and Players applause)
Elsewhere the standards are no lower, with Shuler
Hensley bringing a heartrending complexity to the portrayal of Jud
Fry - his rendition of 'Lonely Room' will long be remembered. ( Lisa
Martland, Musical Stages)
Shuler Hensley gives a
mesmeric performance as the tormented Jud Fry - showing the sadness of
the man behind the hulk. (David Heppel, Curtain Up - the
Internet Theater Magazine )
Shuler Hensley is a fine
Jud - sinister and unpleasant but milking a little sympathy from the
audience for the born loser he portrays. (David Thomas, Stage Musical
Appreciation Society)
The finest reviews have been for
newcomer Shuler Hensley,
who is a brooding revelation as the anguished farm hand Jud Fry.
(Matt Wolf, The Nando Times)
The supporting cast adds
greatly to the production with Shuler Hensley very nearly stealing the
show as Jud. (Carl M. Szatmary, London Theatre Guide - Online)
As played by the hulking, Georgia-born Shuler Hensley,
'Pore Jud' is not a stock villain; he's a tortured soul, trapped in
ugliness and rage. (Richard Christiansen, Chicago Tribune)
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. (MovieMail)
The wonderful Curly-Laurey
anti-love song "People Will Say We're In Love" is
followed by a grim descent into danger and psychosis in "Pore Jud
(Fry) Is Daid" and "Lonely Room". Bluff,
heavy baritone Shuler Hensley makes a brilliant Jud, feral and scary.
He's an Oklahoma Caliban. (Donald Lyons, NYPost.com)
Jud is the show's outsider,
yes, but Mr Hensley lifts him well beyond the role of stock villain of
the piece. (New York Times)
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