Happy Talk About South Pacific

The first ever Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific opened on Broadway this year and it swept the Tony Awards winning Best Revival of a Musical, Best Actor in a Musical and five other Tony's. But I have yet to see it. It garnered mostly rave reviews with perhaps the most important being that of Ben Brantley, chief theatre critic of the New York Times who said, "I know we're not supposed to expect perfection in this imperfect world, but I'm darned if I can find one serious flaw in this production." Hm, the next available tickets are for October 21st. But will Brazilian opera singer Paul Szot, who won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Emile DeBecque, and Kelli O'Hara as Nellie Forbush still be in it? Who doesn't love a Rodgers and Hammerstein score. "Bali Ha'i", "Some Enchanted Evening", "Happy Talk", "There is Nothing Like a Dame", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair", and "Younger than Springtime" have become worldwide standards. I adored all of the Rodgers and Hammerstein scores as a child and knew every word to every song and still do. So why didn't I buy tickets as soon as I heard it was being revived? In case you didn't know South Pacific is based on two short stories by James Michener from his 1948 Pulitzer Prize winning book "Tales of the South Pacific".

The original Broadway production production opened in 1949 and closed in 1954 after 1,925 performances. It was nominated for 10 Tony Awards and won them all in 1950, making it the only show (play or musical) to win best musical, best direction and all four acting awards, Ezio Pinza as Emile DeBecque, Mary Martin as Nellie Forbush, Myron McCormick as Luther Billis and Juanita Hall as Bloody Mary with direction by Josh Logan who co-wrote the book with Oscar Hammerstein. (Mary Martin also starred in the original West End production which ran between 1951 and 1953.) It was a critical and box office hit and spawned many successful stage revivals as well as the 1958 film adaptation and a 2001 made-for-television movie.

The 1958 film starred Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor as Emile DeBecque and Nellie Forbush. Juanita Hall reprised her Tony Award winning performance as Bloody Mary. She also sang on the cast album but ironically her singing was dubbed in the movie. In fact, the only principal cast members whose own singing voices were used in the film were that of Mitzi Gaynor and Ray Walston who played Luther Billis.

In 2001 an Australian made-for-television movie was made starring Harry Connick Jr. as Lt. Cable and Glenn Close as Nellie Forbush. It was criticized for many reasons including changing the order of the songs, cutting out "Happy Talk" and casting Glenn Close who was felt by many to be too old to play the role of someone who describes herself in song as "immature and incurably green" in the song "I'm in Love With a Wonderful Guy".

I've seen both movies and the television film was okay but not nearly as good as the original 1958 film. Even though I'm a big Harry Connick Jr. fan, I just couldn't understand why they would remake the already wonderful film. Hopefully with Harry and Glenn in the movie, it turned viewers unfamiliar with Rodgers and Hammerstein on to the wonders of their music. Other than that, why bother?

If you listened to this week's Matinee show, you'll have heard my 13 year old niece, Mimi who's visiting from Tokyo, talk about how much she loved the show. Geeze, she came all that way from Japan and got to see it. How'd that happen? Really, I'm happy for her. She loves musical theatre as much as I do but I just have to see this show. As I've said here many a time, so many shows, so little time and money.