Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs
"Green Grow the Lilacs," written by Lynn Riggs, is a seminal play that encapsulates the experience of young love in the Indian Territory during 1900, just prior to Oklahoma's statehood. The play breaks from conventional theatrical structure, presenting its narrative in six interconnected scenes rather than traditional acts. It features a love triangle involving cowboy Curly McClain, who is courting Laurey, and Jeeter, a hired hand vying for her affections. The storyline intertwines themes of rivalry, sacrifice, and community customs, particularly showcased through a lively wedding celebration known as a shivaree. Riggs incorporates authentic Oklahoma dialect and local songs, enriching the cultural texture of the work. The characters navigate the challenges of life in a rugged landscape, highlighting the resilience required to thrive in such conditions. The play's lasting influence is evident in its adaptation into the renowned musical "Oklahoma!" by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, who preserved Riggs's distinctive rhythms in their lyrics. "Green Grow the Lilacs" remains a significant exploration of love and life in early twentieth-century Oklahoma.
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Subject Terms
Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs
First produced: 1931
First published: 1931
The Work
Lynn Riggs’s play Green Grow the Lilacs tells a folktale of young love in the Indian Territory in 1900, seven years before it became the state of Oklahoma. Breaking with the theatrical tradition of acts, his experimental play is constructed in six related scenes. Its old songs and cowboy ballads charmed Broadway audiences.
When cowboy Curly McClain comes courting Laurey on a June morning, her Aunt Eller welcomes him and his boast of a fancy surrey and white horses to take them to the party. When Laurey prefers to go with Jeeter, the “bullet-colored” hired hand, Curly sings a ballad of a disappointed lover who changes the green lilacs of home “for the red, white, and blue” of the army.
The rivalry between Curly and Jeeter over Laurey’s affections starts in Jeeter’s smokehouse and peaks at the party, where Laurey flees to Curly for protection. Curly’s marriage proposal, which is accepted, makes him realize that he must change his cowboy life for a farmer’s plow, saying, “the ranches are breakin’ up fast. They’re puttin’ in barbed w’ar, and plowing up the sod fer wheat and corn.”
The lovers’ marriage night is interrupted by a shivaree, a raucous wedding celebration by the townspeople. The shivaree is an Oklahoma custom. The townspeople put the couple on a haystack and toss straw dolls, representing children, to them. When Jeeter sets fire to the couple’s haystack, Curly defends Laurey and, when the two men fight, Jeeter falls on his own knife and dies. Three days later, as Aunt Eller is consoling Laurey over her thwarted marriage night, Curly escapes from jail before his hearing and returns to the farmhouse. Aunt Eller convinces pursuing townsmen to let Curly stay for his wedding night by insisting that “if a law’s a good law—it can stand a little breakin’.” She assures the posse that Curly will return in the morning for the hearing and that he will be found not guilty.
Rather than showing a glamorized Western setting, Riggs emphasizes the strength of character needed to exist in the harsh land. The women in particular comment on the rigors of Oklahoma life, which robs them of youth and health. Riggs was deliberately preserving the dialect and rhythms of Oklahoma speech and the songs and ballads he loved. When Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein molded the play into the musical Oklahoma! (1943), they did so by incorporating Riggs’s rhythms and regional dialects directly into their lyrics without much change.
Bibliography
Braunlich, Phyllis Cole. Haunted by Home: The Life and Letters of Lynn Riggs. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. Written before a major acquisition of Riggs’s papers was made available by Yale University Library. Good on Riggs’s life in the 1930’s; discusses important themes in Riggs’s plays. Index and appendix.
Braunlich, Phyllis Cole. “The Oklahoma Plays of R. Lynn Riggs.” World Literature Today 64, no. 3 (Summer, 1990): 390-395. Offers criticism and interpretation. Presents Riggs’s serious artistic intentions in his Oklahoma plays. Describes the contemporary critical reception of the plays.
Erhard, Thomas. Lynn Riggs: Southwest Playwright. Austin, Tex.: Steck-Vaughn, 1970. An excellent introduction to research of Riggs’s work. Comments on the playwright’s use of the territorial Oklahoma dialect.
Sper, Felix. From Native Roots: A Panorama of Our Regional Drama. Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, 1948. Describes the plots of nine plays by Riggs. Concludes that Riggs’s use of violence, fury, incest, and murder seem to give the plays an unreal air. Bibliography and index.
Wilk, M. The Story of “Oklahoma!” New York: Grove Press, 1993.