Thursday, February 9, 2012
Theater Pacific Overture: South Pacific Arrives at TPAC
Posted by Jim Ridley on Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 5:02 AM
- Peter Coombs
• Seeing South Pacific is a little like attending a concert by an artist whose music you grew up with, though you weren't conscious of it at the time. You may not even know the show by title: you may just know it as The One With "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair," or Remember, The One With "Honey Bun?" Yet each new Rodgers & Hammerstein number produces a gasp of recognition. The surprise, for many, will be seeing Great American Songbook staples such as "Some Enchanted Evening," "Younger Than Springtime" and "I'm in Love With a Wonderful Guy" in context of a narrative about American troops, Tonkinese natives and European expatriates in the South Pacific during World War II.
The context as well as the sheer plethora of standards can pose some unique problems. The opening scene, for example, wedges in so much exposition and singing between Katie Reid's cockeyed optimist Nellie Forbush and Marcelo Guzzo's brooding South Seas planter Emile de Becque that his murder confession comes off comically abrupt — though no more so than her instantaneous forgiveness. (My wife's given me harsher cross-examinations about the chicken nuggets meant for the kids' lunch.) If you might wish for more chemistry between the leads early on, all is forgiven when Guzzo unleashes his robust baritone on "Some Enchanted Evening," which might be described as the night's "Oh my God, I'm watching South Pacific!" moment.
• Reid doesn't try to match Mitzi Gaynor's pixie-ish force of personality in the 1958 movie version as Nellie — a smart choice, as her restraint pays off. Her exultation in the delightful "Wonderful Guy" number comes as more than just habitual sunniness, making her heartbreak in Act II all the more affecting. She makes a game stab at playing a self-described Arkansas "hick," and while the play's once daring treatment of racial themes now seems like baby steps, she manages to make the word "colored" register as the slap in the face it should be.
• Shane Donovan's Lt. Joe Cable is the best I've ever seen — the most convincing as a military man, the most believably conflicted in his racial confusion, and the first whose fate doesn't seem a foregone conclusion. (Restoring the "My Girl Back Home" number long deleted from the play gives him a little more dimension.) I have yet to see a stage production of South Pacific, however, where Luther Billis, that scheming Seabee, doesn't walk off with the show, and Christian Marriner continues the streak. For some reason he kept reminding me of Freddie Mercury, which suggests something of his assurance. Cathy Foy-Mahi plays Bloody Mary as more desperate than conniving, bringing unusual sympathy to the role.
• Sarna Lapine adapted Bartlett Sher's direction of the Tony-winning 2008 revival for this tour, and it's a handsome, beautifully mounted production — one that emphasizes emotional complexity over Broadway razzle-dazzle, though there's plenty of the latter in evidence. Michael Yeargan's supple sets steer clear of kitschy exoticism, evoking everything from a red-light district to a supply corridor with just a few slotted panels.
• At times, when the songs begin to stack up like planes on a runway — as when Emile's lament "This Nearly Was Mine" follows right upon the heels of Cable's bitter racism plaint "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" — you may wonder if a show can have simply too many strong numbers. An enviable problem to have, no? As impressive as the scenery is, no one's ever going to say they left South Pacific humming it.
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