Re: Now that I have seen Oklahoma!...

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 03:43:08 GMT, Doug Haxton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

>On 24 Nov 2003 20:30:13 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Beb11572) wrote:
>
>
>>>>Why are Curly and Ali smoking?
>>>
>>>Why shouldn't they?  Smoking was *much* more common a hundred years
>>>ago.
>>
>>I'm interested because that wasn't Hammerstein's idea, it was Nunn's.
>>A mere period touch, or "character insight"? 
>
>I'd say the former, not the latter...after all, just what sort of
>character insight does smoking reveal?
>
>>And why *those* characters? If I could
>>see anyone smokin' tobaccy thar, it's Jud -- not Curly.
>
>Why wouldn't Curly smoke?  If anything, it would be unusual in 1903 if
>a cowhand didn't smoke!
>
>Doug

In Act I, Scene I of Green Grow the Lilacs (the play that, of course,
Oklahoma! is based on), Curly "takes cigaret-papers
out of his hat-band, Bull Durham from his shirt pocket, and begins to
roll a cigaret, with elaborate unconcern."  In the party scene, the
farm boys and cowboys are "chewing tabacco and smoking."   

Bob