Wouldn't that pink and purple and red and those brilliant clouds look just wonderful in there? Yes, a Pirnie would be perfect right there.
Those were Caron's thoughts a couple of years ago. So Caron, the founder of the Missoula Children's Theatre and an art lover, did what any art lover would do. He went out and got himself a Larry Pirnie.
That's the story behind one of the most ambitious Missoula Community Theatre projects in recent - even in not-so-recent - memory.
“I always thought that Larry's stuff needed a big place, a bigger room for hanging a painting,” said Caron, director of the upcoming production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's “Oklahoma!” “Why not go all the way? What if we had a really big Pirnie in a really big room?”
“What if” is a reality. So when “Oklahoma!” opens its dusty doors to audiences this weekend, it will be an artistic experience unlike almost anything ever seen in these here parts.
Pirnie, one of the nation's most famous cowboy artists, a man who put technicolor in the tapestry of the West, is the principal star of this production - not as an actor, not as a singer, but as the man who ladled the neon-like colors over a musical that's as traditional as traditional gets.
His 16 paintings of scenery, backdrops and cowgirl, cowboy and cow figurines - translated from their originals into huge set pieces - serve as the catalyst for a vibrantly colorful production starring country superstar Shane Clouse.
Doing “Oklahoma!,” one of the most beloved musicals ever and a play that critics say marks the real beginning of American musical theater, in such a flashy fashion was a risk from the beginning, said Caron, albeit a calculated one. Will the colorful set pieces distract from the production, or enhance it? Should everything on the set be Pirnie-painted? What's the line between cartoon and serious theater?
“It's admittedly kind of a mix, and kind of a mishmash in the very good sense of the word, but that's the fun of it,” said Caron. “Will it work? I have no idea. Will it work as a unified object of art? I have no idea. But it works for me.”
In a way, the question has already been answered. Audiences immediately saw the potential and felt the excitement; the show sold out quickly. That spurred MCT into adding five additional performances, held over from the original run.
Pirnie started developing his set ideas about a year ago, and put paint to paper, coming up with 16 paintings that were later transferred from small sketches into the huge set pieces - four of them 12 by 8 feet - by Katherine Dixon.
From the beginning, Pirnie felt a creative freedom that allowed him to interpret “Oklahoma!” in his own way, a collaborative approach that put him in the middle of all of MCT's production meetings as the ideas unfolded.
“I never had any restrictions from Jim,” said Pirnie. “We agreed on the play, and I looked at the script and looked at the play. The only thing I said is ‘We're not having a windmill.' That's about the only thing I remember starting with. It was easy to work ... on my sketches, because I had no other input than just being me.”
Pirnie and Caron - in fact, the whole cast - agreed that the light-hearted fun of “Oklahoma!” lent itself to the kind of color that Pirnie infused into it.
“Musical theater is bigger than life,” said Shane Clouse, who plays the lead role of Curly McLain, a cowboy competing for a farm girl's affection with a rough farm hand. “Your movements are bigger, your voice has to be louder, and the murals lend themselves to that atmosphere. It's cartoonish, and on stage you're a caricature of yourself anyway, so it allows you to expand on that.”
Clouse, an MCT veteran who headlines his country band Stomping Ground, had to cancel a few concerts to play the role.
“I actually asked my band permission, because they rely on the money we make,” he said. “So we canceled the ones we had to cancel.”
“Oklahoma!” also sees the return to the stage of Margaret Johnson, the former Sentinel High School drama teacher recently honored by at the “Odyssey of the Stars.” Johnson plays the role of Aunt Eller Murphy.
Johnson said Caron took a great play and made it even greater.
“Joy,” she said, “is exactly what Jim is striving for in this production.”
For Caron, the temptation to open up a box of crayons and scribble on everything was difficult to tame, summed up in his dilemma: “I thought, ‘How far can we take this?' ”
He hopes he's struck a balance between honoring the levity of the production and adding something totally fresh. The costuming, for instance, is a compromise between colorful and flashy and traditional Western attire.
“It's a realistic performance, not a big cartoon,” he said.
“Those were really interesting decisions to make - ‘Where do we stop? Where do we start?' ”
For Pirnie, the answer to those was simple.
Infuse joy into the production, and it will work.
“I always use the word joy as a focus in my art, in my commissions,” he said. “If I don't feel joy, I turn the work down. This is a perfect marriage.”
Reach Jamie Kelly at 523-5254 or at jkelly@missoulian.com.
Performances held over
You still have a chance to get tickets to the Missoula Community Theatre's production of “Oklahoma!” The musical has outdone itself in every single way, including, it seems, in publicity. The production sold out almost immediately, and now MCT has extended the run for an additional five performances from May 17-20 (Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.).
Performances held over
You still have a chance to get tickets to the Missoula Community Theatre's production of “Oklahoma!” The musical has outdone itself in every single way, including, it seems, in publicity. The production sold out almost immediately, and now MCT has extended the run for an additional five performances from May 17-20 (Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.).
Grab an original Pirnie
Sixteen of the original paintings used as templates in “Oklahoma!” will be on display at MCT from
May 5-14, one hour prior to performances. There will be an auction of the pieces, along with a few of the
set pieces, on May 14 at 7 p.m., with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Proxy bids, as well as additional viewing times, are available by calling Cate Sundeen at 728-1911, Ext. 226.
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