Morning,” even a cappella for a minute, is a classic case of an
unusual opening,^6 but the basic idea came from the source
play. Green Grow the Lilacsbegins with Curly singing a cowboy
song offstage while Aunt Eller is churning butter in the front
room of the farmhouse, then Curly can be seen, still singing,
outside the window. At first Rodgers and Hammerstein tried
various ways to get the chorus into the opening minutes of
the plot. “Strawberry festivals, quilting parties, sewing bees
were suggested and rejected,” Hugh Fordin reports in his bi-
ography of Hammerstein.^7 Finally they kept the opening to
Curly’s solo, then added the nice touch of having Laurey sing
the same tune when she first comes out of the farmhouse. One
is not quite sure if she is mocking Curly, or loving him, or just
singing.
What they really changed from the source play was the set-
ting of the opening scene. They moved it from inside the
farmhouse to the yard in front of the farmhouse, where ensem-
bles could be brought onstage after a time (and where Aunt
Eller must now churn her butter, improbably, in the great out-
doors). Groups of boys and girls come in as the first scene goes
on, offering little outbreaks of support for the soloists and
teasing them, three ensemble groups in the first scene alone:
the male chorus joins Will Parker for “Everything’s Up to Date
in Kansas City,” the female chorus joins Laurey for “Many a
New Day,” and the male chorus joins Ali Hakim for “It’s a
Scandal, It’s an Outrage.” Indian Territory this may be, but the
ensembles make it clear that the white settlers are already in a
statehood frame of mind. Riggs’s play has a sharper edge about
this issue. The pressure for statehood actually impedes the love
story in Riggs (Curly has to break out of jail to spend his wed-
ding night with Laurey, and he will go back to jail in the morn-
ing). In Oklahoma!the expansion of the first scene into ensem-
bles tells everyone that “Oklahoma” is already present in these
84 CHAPTER FOUR
(^6) Mordden, Rodgers and Hammerstein, p. 46, names Peggy-Ann, Music in the
Air, Anything Goes, Pal Joey, and Lady in the Darkas earlier shows with intimate
openings.
(^7) Fordin, Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II, pp.
186–87.