![]() Joseph Cable, and Sera Maehara who plays Liat. Joining Ampil are Gina Beck and Julian Ovenden, who star as Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque, Rob Houchen who plays Lt. It features some of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s most popular songs, including “Some Enchanted Evening”, “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” “Younger than Springtime,” “Bali Ha’i”, “This Nearly Was Mine”, and more. South Pacific opened on Broadway in 1949 and won 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical. When young Princeton graduate Lieutenant Joe Cable is flown in on a dangerous reconnaissance mission, love and fear become entwined as the island’s battle for hearts and minds begins. The scheming sailor Luther Billis runs a makeshift laundry to earn a quick buck, but he’s no match for the quick-witted Polynesian Bloody Mary who’s intent on exploiting these foreigners. Nellie Forbush, a navy nurse from Arkansas, finds herself falling for the French plantation owner, Emile de Becque – a man with a mysterious past. US troops are kicking their heels amid the cacao groves while restlessly waiting for the war to reach them. Tickets: $31-$64 51, musical is set in 1943 on an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean. ![]() Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes, one intermission Where: Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Road, Oakland Michener, presented by Woodminster Summer Musicals Still, it’s fascinating to see how the times keep on changing it, whether or not the text of the show changes at all.Ĭontact Sam Hurwitt and follow him at /shurwitt.īy Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan, based on the book by James A. ![]() “South Pacific” is obviously a musical that’s stood the test of time, and rightly so. Jane Mason’s exuberant choreography keep things lively, especially among the rowdy Seabees. The production makes good use of the spacious stage with the smoothly shifting set by Maggie Lamb, Brandon MacLachlan and Chris Wettersten, with painted backgrounds of island scenery and the facade of Emile’s elegant cottage. Cable, and Edward Hightower is an amusingly boorish Luther Billis, the lewd and unscrupulous Navy Seabee who’s always looking to make a quick buck. (And yes, that scene’s still pretty creepy.) Joshua Marx is an earnest and anguished Lt. Jeffrie Givens is an understated Bloody Mary, and Sarah Pon is placid and pliant as her (too) young daughter Liat. A scene in which she essentially pimps out her seemingly underage daughter Liat to American Marine Lieutenant Joe Cable is troubling, exacerbated by her youth inspiring the romantic ballad “Younger Than Springtime.”Įven so, it’s a classic for a reason, boasting a wealth of terrifically catchy songs by Hammerstein and composer Richard Rodgers, including “There Is Nothing Like a Dame,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” “I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy” and “Honey Bun.” The character of pidgin-speaking Tonkinese souvenir peddler Bloody Mary often comes off as an ethnic caricature. If the message wasn’t clear enough, the song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” drives home the show’s point about the insidious indoctrination of racism.ĭecades later, the musical’s uncomfortable moments are for different reasons. When she finds out this older French fellow has two half-Polynesian children from a previous relationship, she has trouble getting over her aversion to his past multiethnic relationship. Nellie Forbush, a young Navy nurse from Arkansas, falls in love with a French plantation owner while stationed on a South Pacific island during World War II. The show ruffled a lot of feathers in the 1950s for the explicitly antiracist message of its libretto by lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II and original director Joshua Logan. Review: Gleefully bloody ‘Titus Andronicus’ stalks the East Bay
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