REVIEW: South Pacific

By DAVID ROONEY

If the one-night-only concert staging of "South Pacific" Thursday brought admirers of the Rodgers & Hammerstein show only marginally closer to the Broadway revival they have waited 50 years for, the exceptionally well-cast Carnegie Hall presentation showed at least that there's plenty of full-blooded life in this landmark musical's gloriously romantic score. But even in this discreetly pruned version, the book's racial-prejudice conflicts belong to another era and seem unlikely to connect with today's audiences, leaving the questions that have long surrounded a full-scale production unanswered.

The presence of key Broadway producer-investors including Barry and Fran Weissler, Scott Rudin and Harvey WeinsteinHarvey Weinstein at the show gives some indication of the powerful allure, as the last of the R&H classics to be revived on a major N.Y. stage, of this World War II tale of two troubled romances on an island paradise.

With a leading woman who agrees readily to spy on the man she loves and recoils in shock upon learning he has a dead Polynesian wife and two brown-skinned children, the 1950 tunertuner challenged American audiences at a time when race attitudes were still very much in ferment. But such plot points require considerable concessions from contemporary theatergoers, as does the idea of an island woman who practically offers up her daughter for sex to a military man and potential husband (not to mention a Marine who sings "Gayer than laughter, am I").

Reservations about the book aside, it's impossible to deny the persuasiveness of these songs. Written at a time when the Broadway musical was as central to American popular culture as it is marginalized today, the show generated an uncommonly high yield of numbers that carved a deserved place in the national songbook. Just as important, the show's range and distribution of song styles illustrates an impeccable craftsmanship long absent from the musical stage -- from comedic songs like "Honey Bun" and "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" to rousing ensemble numbers like "There Is Nothing Like a Dame," lusty romantic outpourings like "A Wonderful Guy" and ballads both tender ("Younger Than Springtime," "Some Enchanted Evening") and tormented ("This Nearly Was Mine").

Of course, great songs are nothing without capable performers, and director Walter Bobbie hit the motherlode here with a dream cast, headed by Reba McEntire as Ensign Nellie Forbush. As in most concert stagings, the cast performs on-book, which often tends to limit any depth of characterization. That is certainly evident in McEntire's case, and given that her casting was announced last fall, the under-rehearsed singer's reliance on script in hand, even during her songs, was disappointing. But despite some line flubs that contributed to a somewhat hesitant grasp of the character, McEntire's warmth, sassy charm and down-home earthiness made her a delight in the role -- "as corny as Kansas in August" and proud of it.

Identifying herself as a hick in her first scene, the unworldly Little Rock Navy nurse's shakiness next to the moneyed, European smoothness of rich French planter Emile de Becque seemed almost natural. McEntire became increasingly comfortable as the concert proceeded, delivering a touching final act as Nellie fears that her blinkered stupidity has robbed her of love.

McEntire's supple deployment of her twangy country sound not only gave her songs a fresh, plucky feel, but was an enjoyable contrast to the more theatrically-trained voices around her, notably that of Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile. The pair's gorgeous, introspective "Twin Soliloquies" was poignantly interpreted, a prime example of the incomparable R&H facility for expressions of incipient love that are both open-hearted and cautious.

McEntire's funny, boisterous rendition of "Honey Bun" was one of the concert's high points, given amusing support by Alec BaldwinAlec Baldwin as wiseguy sailor Luther Billis. Baldwin proved himself a great sport in the number, donning coconut bra and grass skirt and doing a few woozy hula moves. That song and the rowdy "There is Nothing Like a Dame," which flooded the stage with testosterone as a crowd of sailors materialized suddenly from behind the orchestra, received the most fully theatrical treatment. (Giving a nod to the 1958 movie's crazy Technicolor fantasy hues, Alan Adelman's lighting soaked the back wall in psychedelic hues and tangled jungle shadows, but otherwise, this was a minimally designed and costumed presentation.)

A romantic lead with only limited stage time, Emile was brought robustly to life via Mitchell's mellifluous baritone, a superb match for the show's more richly emotional songs. If his French accent threatened at times to get in the way of the songs' full depth of feeling, his "Some Enchanted Evening" was genuinely uplifting and the masterful build and effortless control he showed on "This Nearly Was Mine" brought down the house, showing why Mitchell is in the top tier of Broadway musical leading men.

No less vocally accomplished was Jason Danieley as doomed Marine Lt. Joe Cable. His sweet, pure tenor made exquisite work of "Younger Than Springtime" and "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught," a song about the roots of racial hatred, no doubt audacious in its day and still timely. Danieley's gentle, boyish openness made Joe's romance with lovely Tonkinese girl Liat (Renita Croney) especially moving, while the conflict that stymies his surrender to love is another of the book's more awkward hurdles.

Perhaps the most fully developed character was Lillias White's Bloody Mary. With the island earth mother's pidgin English and larger-than-life personality, this is a role steeped in caricature but played here with heart and a welcome lack of condescension. While her songs are among the show's kitschiest, White's sinuous vocals made "Bali Ha'i" into a seductive carnival barker's pitch for a tropical getaway, while "Happy Talk" became a joyous promise of love and fulfillment.

In their more limited roles, Conrad John Shuck and Dylan BakerDylan Baker as Navy officers showed the beginnings of vibrant characterizations. In general, the cast's timing and energy could frequently have been sharper in the clipped book scenes (Encores! series regular David Ives did the concert adaptation) but the tendency toward unforced performances was refreshing.

From the full eight-minute overture through the final-scene emotional swell, musical director Paul Gemignani led the 45-piece, string-heavy orchestra through the kind of lush, soaring arrangements that make musical fans swoon, backed by a 50-strong ensemble of voices. Some occasional problems with undermiked performers no doubt will be cleaned up before PBS airs the concert in the spring in its "Great Performances" series.

Concert adaptation, David Ives. Directed by Walter Bobbie. Musical director and conductor, Paul Gemignani. Musical staging, Casey Nicholaw. Scenic consultant, John Lee Beatty; costume consultant, Catherine Zuber; lighting, Alan Adelman; sound, Acme Sound Partners; associate director Marc Bruni. Reviewed June 9, 2005. Running time: 2 HOURS, 20 MIN.

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Sultry City Night Is Transformed Into an Enchanted Bali Ha'i

By BEN BRANTLEY

It was one of those nights when cynicism didn't stand a chance. The battalions of artists defending the honor of Love with a capital L - an emotion to be accompanied by many violins in eternal crescendo - were just too overwhelming to be resisted Thursday night at Carnegie Hall, where a concert version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" was performed in a state of nearly unconditional rapture

The hard-hearted could sense what they were up against with the opening strains of the overture, played by the Orchestra of St. Luke's under the superb direction of Paul Gemignani, and melodies you might have once dismissed as candied corn ("Bali Ha'i," "Some Enchanted Evening") took on a compelling, multilayered intricacy.

That was before the ideally assembled cast members, led by Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell and staged by Walter Bobbie, stepped forward to sing with their hearts in their throats. We were all goners long before Mr. Mitchell brought the house to a roar in the second act with "This Nearly Was Mine." Those fortunate enough to attend this one-night-only benefit for Carnegie Hall had the privilege of experiencing the emotional force of "South Pacific," a show seemingly calcified by its status as a period classic, as the members of its opening night audience must have in 1949.

I grew up listening to my parents' recording of "South Pacific," the original cast album with Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza. And while its adhesive tunes were clearly going to inhabit my memory until I died, as I grew older "South Pacific" never felt as fresh to me as Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel" did.

With its postwar sentimentality and solemn liberal conscience, "South Pacific" seemed lodged forever in an age when Americans were proud to be, like the show's heroine, cockeyed optimists. The show has received only one full-scale theatrical revival in Manhattan, at the New York State Theater in 1967 (plus a version at the New York City Opera in 1987), and critics found it dated even then. And neither a recent television adaptation, starring Glenn Close, nor Trevor Nunn's documentary-style staging (real jeeps! newsreel footage!) for the National Theater in London managed to make "South Pacific" come to life in the present tense.

Hammerstein and Josh Logan's exposition-heavy book (neatly streamlined here by David Ives), a tale of parallel romances among different cultures adapted from James A. Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific," still presents problems for latter-day producers. But by putting the emphasis squarely on the music, the Carnegie Hall production located the show's real staying power in its operatic respect for love as a force that hurts, teases, destroys and ennobles.

As the central pair of lovers - the Navy Ensign Nellie Forbush and the French planter Émile de Becque brought together on a Pacific Island during World War II - Ms. McEntire, the country and western singing star, and Mr. Mitchell, the Broadway baritone, made fruitful use of the differences in their performance styles.

As she showed when she took over from Bernadette Peters in the Broadway revival of "Annie Get Your Gun," Ms. McEntire is a natural for musicals, with a big, gliding voice that blurs the lines between conversation and song. Mr. Mitchell, who plumbed the bass notes of his part like a miner extracting diamonds, has a more formal approach, as befitted his suave European character. But the tidal pull of the orchestra - which here underlined every kiss and quarrel - made their coming together as inevitable as it was improbable.

This was as it should be, since the music is as much about love's disturbing pain and conflict as its all-conquering harmony. As Lt. Joseph Cable, the young marine who falls in love with a Polynesian girl (Renita Croney), Jason Danieley plied his exquisite tenor to introduce grainy shades of darkness, a Romantic poet's sense of love as a disease, to what is usually a white-bread role.

The orchestra brought out the diverse textures of the score, both its stirring ambivalence and its playfulness, its purposeful mingling and overlapping of the show's familiar musical phrases. Has there ever been a book musical that makes such artful use of the reprise? Just listen to the permutations of passages from "Bali Ha'i," "Some Enchanted Evening" and "Younger than Springtime" throughout. For the first time, I began to think that "South Pacific" may indeed be Rodgers's musically richest work.

Mr. Bobbie, whose directorial track record is varied, clearly thrives when forced to extract imaginative staging solutions from minimal means. His work here was his best since he oversaw "Chicago" for the Encores! series (which transferred to Broadway). The introduction of the strapping chorus of Seabees, who doffed black jackets to morph into flesh-and-blood Popeyes, was delightful. So was the crossed-dressed revue number "Honeybun," in which a sailor-suited Ms. McEntire courted a big lug in a grass skirt.

That lug was Alec Baldwin, a comic paradigm of understated gruffness as the enterprising Luther Billis. Undulating beneath a shimmering caftan, Lillias White perfectly balanced the coarseness and seductiveness of that old island enchantress Bloody Mary. In her hands, "Bali Ha'i" and "Happy Talk" actually sounded new.

But then so did "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair," thanks to Ms. McEntire's disarmingly casual delivery. Open-voiced and open-faced, she was born to play Nellie, a self-described hick from the sticks who discovers unexpected depths within. As for Mr. Mitchell, his place in the pantheon of romantic musical leads is now guaranteed. In a season of dreary musical revivals, this "South Pacific" was enough to inspire, if just for a few hours, a cockeyed optimist's belief that old warhorses can still be transformed into spirited colts.

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A FAN REVIEW OF SOUTH PACIFIC

By Cheryl Cobb

I just wanted to let everyone know that no matter what these critics' reviews say about Reba's performance in South Pacific, she was, as always, MAGNIFICENT. All of these negative reviews seem to be under the impression that South Pacific is an opera.......it is not. Nor should it be performed that way. Reba was perfect for the part. She performed with all her heart.....full of life and fun, and very emotional. The audience, as well as Reba, fought back tears through several songs. Obviously I am a huge Reba fan and have a very slanted view of things. But.....everyone in the crowd around me felt the same about her performance. I heard nothing but excitement and enthusiasm toward her. Anyone who says differently doesn't really understand South Pacific. So forget the critics. Trust me, Reba didn't let us down. I consider it a true privilege to have seen this musical in New York City on Thursday night. As always, Reba performed with all her heart and all her soul, and turned in the usual exceptional performance that we have all come to know and expect. I wish more of you could have been there to see it!

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