South Pacific’s lead characters, ensign Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque, originate conspicuously from two distinct worlds. She is from Little Rock and exudes an aura of everyday small town folk. She is twangy, good-willed, innocent in the ways of worldly culture, and yet she is solidly herself, secure in her life even when an inner insecurity about love nags her toward doubt. Emile, on the other hand, has the quality of a quietly heroic sophisticate. He is tall, deep-voiced, and polished with an appealing continental savoir faire. He has poise and dignity. He reads Proust and Gide; she doesn’t.
These two characters, each one realized with sensitive theatrical smarts by Carmen Cusack and David Pittsinger respectively, don’t ask for our affection but they certainly win it in minutes. They are appealing, via the two leads, because they speak openly through emotional bruises and make us care along with them about their difficult love affair. Each one implies an inner turmoil, yet a gradually deepening connection with the other, and they tell us who they are by suggestion as much as overtly. They are likeable by seeming natural and not broadcasting likability.
This wonderful production of South Pacific begins magically and so it ends. There is no guile in the air, no mean-spiritedness, but a lightness of being that is unselfconscious about romance while acutely aware of how war touches and deeply changes lives. To open, the two charming kids sing Dites-moi, the servant supervises them in French in an atmosphere of implied sophistication, and through the large window the sea is made of soft blue enchantment. The world is good. Next comes a flawless transition from home to beach where a chorus of sailors celebrates the entrepreneurial Bloody Mary. Already, this production brilliantly combines stylized fantasy and the gritty realities of war, for these sailors seem sweaty and worked over by the hot climate.
The story concerns interracial relationships and ultimately the southerner Nellie must acknowledge, of the seeds of racism in her, that “I can’t help it…. This is something that was born into me.” Lieutenant Cable, whose love for Polynesian Liat makes him face his own submission to racist barriers, sings, “You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear.” The fact that the tall and meaty Cable on his knees is as tall as the ultra petite Liat also provides a blunt metaphor for superpower USA’s dominance over helpless colonials. But Cable comes to realize, albeit too late, that he must forsake his racist homeland in his love for Liat, just as Nellie must change her inner self to love Emile. Thus, one of the great scores in musicals doesn’t shirk reality.
There is so much to cheer in this thoroughly conceived and imaginatively directed, by Barlett Sher, production. The stage feels full and vibrant with only one character or with twenty on it. Transitions from scene to scene overlap like filmic dissolves and, if you want seamless, look here. The realities of war are conveyed here in a small gesture, there in a vocal cadence, there in a nuance that speaks loud and clear. The singing at any volume, sotto solo or robustly choral or in between, is grand yet rooted in human complexity where feelings are ambiguous, unspoken, and uneasy in the world. The clever choreography bursts with dynamic human ingredients and individual energies and always accentuates character.
The magically subtle sets by Michael Yeargan prove gradually hypnotic and, without fail, seduce one’s imagination. Flexible stage size screens provide several vertical layers of depth and the physical blending of scenes, from one enchanting hue to the next, creates a subtly magical continuum. The sets are fresh with stylization, be they the commander’s office with a wall-size map of the east pacific islands or a subtly tranquil beach that suggests sand vibrating with both heat and mystery. Donald Holder’s equally subtle lighting is carefully attuned to the dramatic potential that these visual patterns provide and his combinations of colours shift with the narrative moods. The lighting not only sculpts the settings and characters into theatrical definition, but gives them a blend of psychological and magical resonance.
Carmen Cusack’s Nellie is, of course, the production’s heart, an almost permanent presence on the stage for the show’s running time of almost three hours. She is believably small town, feisty yet vulnerable, dynamically girl next door, and a character of slowly revealed unknowns. Cusack’s voice is startling with versatility, ranging from comic twang to resonant poignancy, often in one breath. She is conversational yet operatically- tinged, undeniably enthusiastic, able to do a Diana Shore clone and move on before the dust has settled. Especially beguiling are her slow drawls that ease her into new realizations, and especially in “A Wonderful Guy,” with its tiptoe choreography, she embodies comic lightness which she tosses off with ease.
In “This Nearly Was Mine” David Pittsinger sings with a deep ocean of a voice
that here and throughout the show reveals inherent nobility and sounds majestic even in everyday feelings. “Some Enchanted Evening” is delivered in a voice that is solidly operatic yet accessible, rich in resonance with, no doubt, much in reserve. Pittsinger warms the heart with his manner, thrills with his ringing tones, and in presence and voice remains something of a mystery, like a volcano that asserts itself by doing only what it needs to. Jodi Kimura’s sharply played Bloody Mary, on the other hand, is very much a person of the streets. physically hefty, savvy in dealing her wares, like a boars tooth bracelet, and a slightly menacing blend of street smarts and exotic other worldliness. She is likeable, if mostly on her own terms, and, with the slightly lunky, boyishly sincere, jock-leaning Lieutenant Cable of Aaron Ramey, rounds out this world onto itself that is South Pacific.
Add to this theatrical abundance the unforgettable male and female choruses, both sexually vibrant, both sexually friendly and inviting, both suggesting a kind of sexual fun that isn’t desperate to take itself seriously. The male voices are firmly masculine and their physicality bursts in mass energy. These men are implicitly rowdy, especially in “There is Nothing Like a Dame,” which here becomes an anthem of collective horniness as they stock around like caged animals. One pelvis thrusts, one hand fondles a breast; these guys need women fast. The delightfully chirping female chorus, meanwhile, displays, like their sailor friends, a variety of timbres in strongly individual voices that in turn makes for detailed harmonies and full-bodied groupings of sound. Moreover, their leggy look and pleasantly substantial derrieres are far from anorexic, packaged in coyly modest bathing suits like almost risqué forties pin ups.
This award-winning South Pacific is memorable and a must see. It offers thoroughly entertaining and moving theatre and is a splendid mounting of a classic that you’ll want to see again before the run ends on April 10.