Interview with Oklahoma! star Anoushka Lucas
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| By
Kevin Thomas
Hold on to your cowboy hats because we’ve got an exclusive interview with the star of Oklahoma! Anoushka Lucas (Laurey). Daniel Fish's revival of Oklahoma! offers a fresh and daring take on the classic American musical. Fish's production challenges the audience to re-examine the show's themes of love, identity and community. From the boundary-pushing staging to the live country band, this production brings a whole new rodeo to the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. Here’s what Anoushka had to say!
Interview with Oklahoma! star Anoushka Lucas
Q&A with Anoushka Lucas
1. What do you love most about your character?
Anoushka: I love Laurey's refusal to settle for something or someone that isn't up to her standards. She has a sort of innate sense of what she wants and deserves, even if she can't articulate it, and she lets that guide her through a lot of tricky interactions.
2. What’s your favourite moment in the show?
Anoushka: There are 2 insane scenes back to back in Act 2 - everything comes to a head with Jud and then with Curly and Laurey loses control over herself and her choices very quickly. The scenes are so tricky to pull off truthfully, they both escalate so rapidly and one feeds directly into the other. It's really joyful to play. I love the simplicity and the drama of them.
3. Does your show have any hidden gems we should know about?
Anoushka: Keep a close eye on what happens to Laurey and Jud at the end of Farmer and the Cowman. It's sexy.
4. How do you get yourself ready to step on stage?
Anoushka: Recently Liza Sadovy and I have started listening to the Archers in the dressing room. It's on between the half-hour call and the quarter. We put our make-up on and our costumes and get fitted for our microphones and I am massively overinvested in the current male escort storyline.
5. What has been your best moment in theatre?
Anoushka: My best moment in theatre was the whole of 2022! I did a Shakespeare at the Donmar, then got cast in Oklahoma!, then wrote my own one-woman play that sold out its run at the Bush Theatre. A very good, very long moment.
6. What's your favourite musical theatre song?
Anoushka: It's a toss-up between Suddenly Seymour and Maybe this time if I'm singing - but if I'm not singing, I bloody love "friend like me" from Aladdin. What a monster.
Oklahoma! tickets are available now!
Get ready to saddle up for a wild ride with the new production of Oklahoma! You’ll be hollerin’ from the moment the lights go out!