TO THE DRAMA EDITOR:

In a recent issue of The Times, Eva Paul of Provincetown, Mass., complained that "The perpetrators of "Oklahoma!" eliminate all mention of Lynn Riggs, the man who wrote "Green Grow the Lilacs" as a perpetrator of "Oklahoma!" I deny this.

Mr. Riggs has been frequently mentioned and always with great admiration. Nevertheless, to please Miss Paul, I should like to mention him again and go on record as saying that Mr. Riggs' play is the wellspring of almost all that is good in "Oklahoma!" I kept many of the lines of the original play without making any changes in them at all for the simple reason that they could not be improved on -- at any rate, not by me.

But more important than this, "Green Grow the Lilacs" had a strange combination of qualities -- lusty melodrama, authentic folk characters and a sensitive lyric quality pervading the whole story. I feel that in some measure we were able to preserve these values in the musical version and they comprise a very important contribution to its success.

Lynn Riggs and "Green Grow the Lilacs" are the very soul of "Oklahoma!"

Okay, Miss Paul?

--Oscar Hammerstein II
--New York
(From the Drama Mailbag in The New York Times.)




... ... I recalled how deeply I had been impressed by Lynn Riggs' description at the start of his play:

"It is a radiant summer morning--the kind of morning which, enveloping the shapes of earth--men, cattle in the meadow, blades of the young corn, streams--makes them seem to exist now for the first time, their images giving off a visible golden emanation that is partly true and partly a trick of imagination, focusing to keep alive a loveliness that may pass away."

On first reading these words, I had a thought, what a pity to waste them on stage directions. Only readers could enjoy them. An audience would never hear them. Yet, if they did, how quickly they would slip into the mood of the story. Remembering this reaction, I reread the description and determined to put it into song. "Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin'" opens the play and creates an atmosphere of relaxation and peace and tenderness.

My indebtedness to Mr. Riggs' description is obvious. The cattle and the corn and the golden haze on the meadow are all there.

(From "LYRICS" by Oscar Hammerstein II)

RETURN