Review - South Pacific: Why Do The Wrong People Travel?

With all due respect to Kelli O'Hara, Paulo Szot, director Bartlett Sher and even Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan, the real star of the Lincoln Center revival of South Pacific is orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett, whose sublime work from the original 1949 production is now enchanting contemporary audiences.

This is the artist whose orchestral arrangements have brought extraordinary subtext, drama and humor to the original Broadway productions of Show Boat, Of Thee I Sing, Anything Goes, Porgy and Bess, Annie, Get Your Gun, Kiss Me, Kate and My Fair Lady. With Richard Rodgers he helped translate the distinct sounds of far-off locales into the musical theatre vernacular with Oklahoma!, The King and I, Flower Drum Song and The Sound of Music. In South Pacific, the softly muted horns and lavish waves of strings that permeate the air during the most romantic moments of what is arguably Rodgers and Hammerstein's most mature and complex score are only equaled by the flip jauntiness of sliding brass he gives the show's livelier tunes. Hearing people go nuts when the stage floor in front of conductor Ted Sperling is rolled back during the overture to reveal a formally clad thirty piece orchestra playing these divine pearls is the only proof you need that theatergoers know and appreciate the real thing when they hear it.

The beauty that Rodgers and Bennett provide musically is matched visually by set designer Michael Yeargan, who utilizes the Vivian Beaumont Theatre's thrust stage to create a vast beachscape that peaks at an upstage sand dune, and Donald Holder, who sumptuously lights evening scenes and romantic interludes. And what Bartlett Sher's production does so well is contrast the beauty of the locale with the ugliness displayed by some who occupied those innocent shores during World War II. It's unfortunate that he does so with so many cuts and additions to Hammerstein and Logan's book. Even more unfortunate is that nowhere in the program is anyone credited for having made these revisions, leaving the uninformed thinking what they're watching is completely the work of the now deceased authors.

But this is an interpretation of South Pacific, and of the prejudices of Americans, that might not have been welcome when the show premiered so shortly after the war's end. Based on James Michener's collection of short stories, Tales of the South Pacific, the action takes place on two small islands, one of which is being used as a U.S. Navy base. With a plan of attack uncertain, the sailors, Seabees and nurses have been stuck there for months with nothing to do, suffering from boredom, tension and severe sexual frustration. Meanwhile, the young, self-professed cock-eyed optimist, Ensign Nellie Forbush from Little Rock, Arkansas (O'Hara) has had a whirlwind romance with a local - the wealthy French planter Emile de Becque (Szot) - who she doesn't know is a widower with two bi-racial children from his deceased Polynesian wife. The subplot involves Marine Lt. Joseph Cable (Matthew Morrison), who has arrived to try and recruit de Becque to join him on a dangerous mission that requires someone with an intimate knowledge of a neighboring island. A Tonkinese entrepreneur named Bloody Mary (Loretta Ables Sayre), who has created an impressive business selling grass skirts and shrunken heads to the visiting yanks, introduces Cable to the beautiful young Liat (Li Jun Li), who the marine immediately has sex with, temporarily forgetting his fiancé back home. Upon discovering Liat is Bloody Mary's daughter, and that she intends to see them married, Cable, who doesn't mind having fun with Liat but would never dream of taking her home to the family, emotionally retreats the same way Nellie retreats when presented with the reality of Emile's mixed race marriage.

While the Hammerstein/Logan book explains, while not excusing, the prejudices of Nellie and Cable as being confused kids far from home not knowing how to deal with a world that has different values from the ones they were brought up with, Sher, through both character interpretation and altering the script, plays up the less attractive aspects of all the main characters, making this South Pacific a romance that is in no way romanticized.

The fine singing actress Kelli O'Hara, whose beautiful soprano is not fully utilized in this role written for Mary Martin, plays Nellie a bit cold and introspective, even during her lighter moments. An added line has her using a racial slur upon discovering the ethnicity of Emile's first wife and the ensuing scene, where she impulsively decides to break off their relationship, is played with such suppressed anger that you might imagine her disgusted at the thought of almost having let a man touch her sexually after touching "one of them."

Brazilian opera star Paulo Szot, making his musical theatre debut, sings "Some Enchanted Evening" and "This Nearly Was Mine" with enough elegant passion that the applause-inducing staging and lighting effects that accompany his final notes are not only unnecessary, but completely out of place in this naturalistic mounting. I just wish that during his book scenes he would show as much passion for Nellie as he does for his politics. Though originally written as the pacifist of the musical, a major detail in the story of why he fled France has been altered to make him a man capable of intentional violence towards others.

Matthew Morrison is very effective as Joe Cable. As a dark and brooding presence sent on what might be considered a suicide mission, he seems to have only two things on his mind; getting laid and getting to kill some Japanese before he dies. He appropriately plays his scene with Liat, including the soaring "Younger Than Springtime," with more self-satisfaction than tenderness. This production restores the charm duet "My Girl Back Home" (cut from the original Broadway production but included in the film) for Cable and Nellie which helps establish some much-needed sympathy the pair requires this time around.

Danny Burstein does an excellent job as the wheeling-dealing Seabee Luther Billis (as do Victor Hawks and Noah Weisberg as his sidekicks Stewpot and The Professor), growling out his funny lines and showing such sweet and honest affection for Nellie you might be willing to see her dump the Frenchman and marry him. Loretta Ables Sayre's Bloody Mary eschews the comic cuteness usually associated with the role and plays her as a serious-minded survivor. "Happy Talk," where she tries to sell Cable on the idea of marrying Liat, has probably never been staged so suggestively.

And, without spoiling it for you, I'd just like to make mention of a beautiful and heartfelt moment Skipp Sudduth pulls off when his Captain Brackett momentarily drops his tough exterior. It's unexpected, but so right.

The most interesting move Sher makes, and one that could not have been pulled off in 1949, is to cast three black actors (Mike Evariste, Jerold E. Solomon and Christian Carter) as the only non-white members of the military seen on stage. Though they're never seen as the target of any racism, they still remain somewhat separated from the others in much of the staging. The director goes a little overboard, though, in having the trio placed behind Morrison, observing as he sings the score's controversial song about the nature of racism, "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught." For a moment there I was afraid he was going to have them singing backup.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Paulo Szot and Kelli O'Hara Bottom:Victor Hawks, Danny Burstein and Noah Weisberg