After Eight said: "“ it took a lot of chances with familiar material, and we need more of that.”
We need none of that.
"
I'll grant you, changing the ending to My Fair Lady bugs me in a way this show (which is more radical in its alterations) doesn't, but that's because I get the impression that that production, for most of it's running time, was a typical My Fair Lady, and then this sudden switch. It feels tonally off. Plus, no one is saying "Oh I'm so sick of My Fair Lady, it's so old fashioned."
But they generally do say that with Oklahoma!, and I hate that that show (one of my all-time favorites) has come to be treated as outdated and irrelevant. Plus, everything I've read about the Oklahoma! revival sounds tonally consistent. It wasn't a typical production with one really out-in-left-field choice.
Is it how I would stage the work, do I consider this the "definitive" staging? No. But it was daring, the cast album is a delight, and to me the show's daring was consistent and therefore was done with integrity.
To each their own.