Riggs–Green Grow, leads to OK
I have decided to use this Saturday’s post to discuss some interesting ideas that came to me as I researched and drafted a monograph on the adaptation of Lynn Riggs’ play Green Grow the Lilacs into the musical Oklahoma!
When I started my work, I assumed something that many people assume: that Rodgers and Hammerstein created a masterful work of art out of an old relic. I soon found out that I was greatly mistaken. No, I am still of the mind that the musical is a great piece of art. What I found out is that all of the elements that contributed to the success of Oklahoma! can be found in Green Grow the Lilacs and that Lynn Riggs was a gifted writer and philosopher. I explained it in this way:
“I came to the subject of Oklahoma! with limited knowledge of Lynn Riggs and his writing. At the outset, I knew only the charms of the musical. Yet the more I studied Green Grow the Lilacs, the more I have grown to love it. I will go further and say that the more I study the play, the more I have come to admire and respect Riggs as a wonderful philosopher. In this one play, he succeeded in wedding his Cherokee heritage to a transcendent and universal understanding of human existence.”
During my research I found that the Cherokee Nation had two sides, one that was known and the other that was unknown. The part that was known was the fierce bravery of its warriors. Even Andrew Jackson allied himself with the Cherokee Nation in his war against the Creek Nation in 1814.
What is not as well known is the fact that the Cherokee Nation was a peaceful Nation, an agrarian Nation and a law-abiding Nation. What I found was that:
“I believe that when the Cherokee people have dirt on their hands, they feel the power of the good earth that gives sustenance to all living things. Plants, animals and humans are all connected to the earth because the earth is their source of life. This reverential attitude toward the land and its ability to give and sustain life dominates the Cherokee character, no matter where the Cherokee people resided. This common vision is the basis of the Cherokee Nation and has led its people to remain tethered closely to the land they love.”
I am indebted to the insightful writings of Professor Jace Weaver, who noted that:
“The play is set in the heart of the Cherokee Nation very near Riggs’s own birthplace during the period of Riggs’s youth. It seems highly unlikely that the Cherokee playwright would write a play about such a place and time from which the Native voice is totally absent. Instead, I believe there is considerable textual evidence that Green Grow the Lilacs is not a play devoid of Indian characters at all but is, rather, in some sense, a play about them.”
I agreed with him but thought we ought to go further.
“In my view, the play’s theme is the love of the land and the fact that this love blossoms out of the Cherokee ethos. I am convinced that Riggs felt that ethos and tried to capture it. Starting with Weaver’s word “sense,” I would go further and state that the play is an attempt by Riggs to capture the “spiritual sense” that lies at the heart of the Cherokee ethos and use the characters in the play to portray the people in the Indian Territory, with the exception of Jeter.
“This logic requires us to conclude that the Cherokee ethos had been assimilated into the character of the people in the Indian Territory, regardless of their racial classification. The result of adopting the Cherokee ethos was that the white and mixed blood characters were spiritually absorbed into the Cherokee Nation.”
Thus, I concluded that the heart and soul of Oklahoma! was founded on the philosophy contained in Green Grow the Lilacs. I believe that Hammerstein felt much the same way and was drawn to Green Grow the Lilacs because of Riggs’ philosophy about life and the land. Hammerstein said he was indebted to Riggs and to the stage directions provided by Riggs before the play starts:
“My indebtedness to Mr. Riggs’ description is obvious. The cattle and the corn and the golden haze on the meadow are all there.”
Out of the stage directions grew the vision of the first song in the new show, to be sung off-stage, just as was done in the play. I felt that:
“Riggs’ words may be the genesis of Hammerstein’s lyrics, but in my opinion that was just a starting place. Riggs’ words merely depict an ordinary image of what one would expect to see in a meadow in Oklahoma on a summer morning. Cattle might be grazing near a stream, and young stalks of corn might be growing nearby. It was up to Hammerstein to write lyrics that would reveal to the audience an underlying spiritual reality of ‘peace and tenderness.’ ”
Richard Rodgers received the lyric for the first song and was stunned.
“The very first lyric that Oscar finished was “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” and when he handed it to me and I read it for the first time I was a little sick with joy because it was so lovely and so right. When you’re given lines like “The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye,” you get something to say musically.”
I finally realized that Hammerstein had made his greatest contribution to art in the song lyrics found in Oklahoma! While I outlined six contributions in all, I think Hammerstein’s greatest gift was his ability to make the characters come off the stage and enter your heart. The characters become your friends and inspire you to do better in your own life.
The monograph is short and is called: A Spiritual Exploration of the Literary and Performing Arts, Volume III: Oklahoma!
It can be found on Amazon as a paperback and an ebook.