The Trail To Oregon!
Theatre Tulsa Studios
Tulsa
Nov. 2, 2023
I didn’t actually mean to see all the theatre productions happening in Tulsa in the past three weeks. It just sort of happened. Some people take autumn foliage tours this time of year; I apparently go on performing arts sprees, covering more ground than is really rational for someone who can’t (yet) be in multiple places at once. I ended up actually going to way more places than I’d expected on this ride: 9th-century Scotland, 1921 Greenwood, the blood-spattered halls of Hellerween. My last stop took me way out west on The Trail to Oregon!, a deliriously funny show by StarKid Productions, a group of friends who started making parody musicals at the University of Michigan back in 2009 and have just kept doing them, to huge viral YouTube and live theatre success.
I missed this show the first time it moseyed this way back in 2021, so I was excited to get another chance, mainly because it featured a Tulsa cast and crew I always trust to put out stellar work — and yes, because I was curious about what the heck a musical based on the iconic Oregon Trail video game (of “you have died of dysentery!” fame) could possibly be like. I honestly didn’t know what I was walking into, but some in the crowd definitely did, judging by the gleeful anticipatory cringe sounds and enthusiastic singing-along of Gen Z audience members sitting beside me. Community theatre (especially musical theatre) is a zone in any city where you can find that most pure of experiences — groups of nerds having fun together — and this show brought out the best of that vibe in Tulsa.
Staged at Theatre Tulsa’s new storefront space at 55th and Peoria, the production gathered a team of local all-stars (Sam Briggs, Karlena Riggs, Robert Young, Kristen Fouke Simpson, Nicholas Cains, Samara Cain, and director Angela McLaughlin) who brought their massive talents to an evening of unfettered ridiculousness, which they pulled together in only three weeks. The Trail to Oregon! follows a family of five as they set out for the “Eden” to the west, and from the get-go the show spoofs the dumbness and hubris of the whole endeavor. (I appreciated McLaughlin mentioning in her pre-show remarks that the actual Oregon Trail wasn’t something to laugh about; among other things, “pioneers” brought disease, disruption, and displacement to Indigenous peoples they encountered along the way. The game itself apparently now features fully developed and playable Native characters.)
The songs that made me cry-laugh and the inane situations these characters found themselves in kept coming with a relentless absurdity I was happy to surrender to. The father, mother, grandpa, and two kids meet a shady shopkeeper (Young) who sells them a wagon with octagonal wheels; the family’s younger child eats the grass they were saving for their hilariously decrepit ox (also Young); the other kid gets nabbed by the Bandit King (Young again). The wagon catches on fire, a disaster enacted by Simpson flinging around lengths of orange tulle with the mock seriousness of a Martha Graham dancer. And of course, someone’s got to die of dysentery. Here, the audience votes before the show on which character that’s going to be; on the night I went, it was Briggs, the father, who got the baddest bug. The commitment that this man — one of Tulsa’s finest tenors as well as this show’s producer and choreographer — brought to scooting around the stage as he expired, accompanied by fart noises (also made by Young, this time in a Portlandia beanie and flannels), was absolutely on par with what I’ve seen him bring to the lofty likes of Sondheim musicals and Tulsa Opera.
That was true across the board: in a production that could easily have been just a goofy time, everyone involved here delivered their A‑game, playing the comedy with a slam-dunk mix of vaudeville broadness and wisecracking sharpness, while giving the occasional tender moments enough weight to be felt amid the insane chaos that surrounded them. (And Briggs, who has probably spent thousands of hours learning dance steps for musicals, should really do more choreography. His was great.) “Please laugh; it’s like air to these crazy actors,” McLaughlin said before the show, as if we needed any urging in that direction. She also mentioned that this kind of space — a former Family Dollar in a part of town that’s not often served by the performing arts — allows theatre troupes to put on shows that are “weird, experimental, fun,” and maybe most importantly, accessible to more of Tulsa.
It’s a tradition that the Trail to Oregon! audience gets to name the characters as the musical begins. My thanks to this night’s family — Jenny Craig, Sexy Hot Wife, Pee Monster, Adopted, and Arby’s Bacon Beef & Cheddar, all of whom ended the show in nude bodysuits, fording a river to their final destination with water guns in their fists — for an experience I’ll never forget.
Next from Theatre Tulsa: Shakesbeer Festival, November 11
