This story reminds me very much of Beatrice and Benedick in "Much Ado About Nothing". The setting may be changed and the subplot may have a darker tone, but basically it's the "I love him but I'm not going to tell him".... "I love her but I won't say it till she tells me she loves me first" plot. Don't they say somewhere there are only a dozen basic plots for stories?
Having said that, I do like this show and especially this version very much.
Yup, definitely. Lynn Riggs was a good writer but not a great one -- this is one time when the musical (Oklahoma!) was actually quite a bit better dramatically than the play it was based on (Green Grow the Lilacs, by Riggs). The original is interesting, but only the setting makes it sufficiently original to retain any real interest. So Riggs was good enough to pick one of the less common of those dozen basic plots, and good enough to reset it in the locale he was familiar with (he was born in Claremore), but not great enough to vary the plot sufficiently to obscure its origin.
Edward
Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl.
Boy gets girl.
Hundreds of stories are based on this premise and told in hundreds of ways. Oklahoma is a version that is special because of the genius of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Add in the original choreography by Agnes de Mille and you have an entertaining show that is hard to beat.