The box social auction, aka picnic basket auction, is Rodgers and Hammerstein II’s original to their production of Oklahoma! It’s a substitute for lovers’ combat. Instead of knights in armor, the good-hearted cowboy Curley and black-hearted farmhand Jud Fry bid for Laurey’s picnic basket. Each man knows the winner is entitled to picnic with Laurey. The auction is a typical male chauvinistic battle for dominance. Hammerstein, responsible for the story, must have known this but also knew it made good theatrical sense.
Dressed in white to suggest her purity and virginity, Laurey shows watches helplessly. Though she shows no partiality, she favors the sweet-natured Curly afraid but attracted to Jud’s physicality and sexuality.
Curly is determined. He sells his saddle, horse, and last, his gun. For a cowboy, Curly’s determination to sell his most prized possessions signals his love. Jud says, “Yes, sir. You need that bad. So aunt Eller, I’m jist as reckless as Curly McLain.” However, in defeat, Jud is sour, and the picnickers are silent and stunned.
Finally, the auctioneer Aunt Eller says, “Going, going, gone.” And there is silence.
“Well, what’s the matter with you folks?” Everybody cheers! Aunt Eller coaches them, “Ain’t nobody gonna cheer or nothin’.”
In addition to winning Laurey (for Fifty-three dollars), Curly gets a basket full of meat pies, apple jelly, and gooseberry tarts. Does anybody ever remember the gooseberry tarts?
The Broadway Cast: Alfred Drake as Curley McLain; Joan Roberts as Laurey Williams; Celeste Holm as Ado Annie; Howard D Silva as Jud Fry; Charlotte Greenwood as Aunt Eller
The basis for Oklahoma, Lynn Rigg’s Green Grow the Lilacs (1931), does not have a picnic basket auction. In 1958, Martin Ritt’s Long Hot Summer made a big deal of an auction.
Featured Image: Trevor Nunn’s Oklahoma! (1999). Jackman as Curly McLain, Josefina Gabrielle as Laurey Williams, Shuler Hensley as Jud Fry, and Maureen Lipman as Aunt Eller.
See Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Oklahoma! (1943); Fred Zinnemann. Oklahoma! (1955). The screenplay by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig is based on Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, II. Oklahoma! (1943) and Lynn Riggs. Green Grow the Lilacs (1931), Lynn Riggs. Green Grow the Lilacs. In The Cherokee Night and Other Plays. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1936. Reprint, 2003. Also, other productions by Rouben Mamoulian (1943); Trevor Nunn. Oklahoma! (Royal National Theater, 1999) and Daniel Fish. Oklahoma! (2019)