"South Pacific' revival on tour (1st review)

The other day I heard a re-broadcast of a Frank Sinatra radio program from Thanksgiving, 1949. In that one-hour show, Sinatra sang no less than three songs from South Pacific, the current hit on Broadway, which illustrates how pervasive the music was then. No less than four of South Pacific's songs were among the top seven on "Your Hit Parade," the pre-eminent gauge of musical popularity. Two of them— "Some Enchanted Evening" and "Bali Ha'i"— occupied first and second place for most of the summer of 1949 and into the fall.

The relationship between those two songs is important to our consideration of the show. When I was a teenager I thought that "Some Enchanted Evening" epitomized South Pacific. To my adolescent mind, the musical seemed to be about romance, and especially about the possibility of love at first sight. Now I see that the story's most important essence is isolation. This is exemplified in "Bali Ha'i's" opening line: "Most people live on a lonely island…."

Whether it was the Frenchman living among Polynesians in the tropics, or sailors and marines separated from their families in wartime, or the Navy nurse from Arkansas, or the Princeton grad from the Philadelphia suburbs, or the Tonkinese single mother "“ this story is about people longing for something, somewhere else "where they would like to be."

And South Pacific is about bigotry, and how prejudices can isolate you.

Racial bigotry, and ageism too

The prejudice can be about skin color, and also about cultural differences and social standing. The leading young man, Lieutenant Joe Cable, is about to enter his Main Line family's law practice. Some folks in last week's audience thought that the references to Philadelphia, Ardmore and Princeton were inserted for this engagement! They eventually heard how Oscar Hammerstein's lyric rhymed "How far away" with "Philadelphia PA" and "Princeton NJ." This was no local insertion but a crucial part of the script. Some attendees may have forgotten that South Pacific was based on stories written by the Bucks County author James Michener.

The prejudice also can involve ageism. Nellie, the nurse, is in her 20s. Emile, the French planter, is said to be 44. Cable doesn't understand how romance can occur when there's such an age difference, and the commander tells Cable that, "strange as it seems," some young ladies prefer a mature man: "I myself am in my 40s and I am by no means through."

In the original production, Emile's age was not mentioned, and the character appeared to be much older than 44. Ezio Pinza had been a leading opera basso for decades and was 57 when South Pacific opened. He was white-haired and balding. So was my friend and neighbor, Wilbur Evans, who played the role in the show's London debut. In 1949 Pinza became a matinee idol to millions of Americans who were fascinated by the big age gap.

Knucklehead hick

As David Patrick Stearns wrote perspicaciously in the Inquirer, South Pacific is about going past surfaces, whether they concern skin color or age. And as Steven Suskin wrote in Playbill Online, the apparently significant age difference "between the knucklehead hick and cultured Frenchman appears to have been built into the authors' conception of the piece."

This is convincingly demonstrated by the national touring company of South Pacific, which stopped in Philadelphia for a week. David Pittsinger is grey-haired and partly bald, 49 but looking older— and that's an asset. His character is a man who feels he's heading into old age as he grasps his last chance for love.

His big second-act number, "This Nearly Was Mine," reinforces the theme when he repeatedly sings: "Now, now I'm alone..." Singing it once with soft wistfulness and once with fierce power, Pittsinger brought down the house. I admired Paulo Szot, who played the role at Lincoln Center (where Pittsinger replaced him), but Pittsinger surpassed him with his richness of voice and tall stature, as well as that aura of maturity.

Nellie with a Southern accent

Carmen Cusack's Nellie was unique. It's the first time I've ever heard Nellie's part performed with a Southern accent (except for a one-night concert performance by Reba McIntyre). Nellie's Arkansas character should be played that way, but no one else has done it. (Not even the originator, Mary Martin, who was born in Texas.)

Cusack also is the most explosive Nellie when she finds out that Emile slept with a "colored" woman. Her anger is fierce, just as her joy had been so exhilarating when she belted, "I'm in Love With a Wonderful Guy." Throughout, Cusack chose line readings and phrasing that illuminated her Nellie.

Anderson Davis was handsome as Joe Cable, with a gorgeous tenor voice, and Jodi Kimura made a properly ugly Bloody Mary, almost as shriveled as the shrunken human heads she sells, but with a lustrous low voice. The way Kimura combines a colorful accent with clear enunciation is a model of communication.

Lawrence Goldberg led the especially large 25-piece orchestra with sonority, making it a starring player, as important as any of the actors. It was a treat to celebrate again the creation of Rodgers & Hammerstein and the current direction by Bartlett Sher (staging) and Ted Sperling (music.)

"'Exactly how it was'

Part of South Pacific's appeal is its realistic depiction of soldiers. My uncle served in that theater of World War II. I remember him sitting on our back porch in the summer of "'49, listening to the album of South Pacific. "That's exactly how it was for us," he said.

In South Pacific's next to last scene, just before Emile re-unites with Nellie, the beach is filled with soldiers shipping out, taking the war against the Japanese northward. Uncle Gil survived, but he remembered that more than 2,000 Americans were killed in the battle for the next island, figuratively on the other side of Bali Ha'i.

♦


To read a related commentary by Peter Burwasser, click here.

*