Some Bali-Ha'i Thoughts on 'South Pacific' at Goodspeed

All production photos by Diane Sobolewski

The show: “South Pacific” at Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, CT. , through Aug. 11.

What is it?: A Rodgers & Hammerstein musical based on James A. Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of short stories, “Tales of the South Pacific.”

What makes it special?: Well, here I diverge from my usual review template for several reasons. One is that at the Saturday matinee that I saw it featured two actors— Hannah Jewel Kohn as Nellie Forbush and Eric Briarley as Emile de Becque — stepping into the leading roles usually played by Danielle Wade and Omar Lopez-Cepero. Kohn and Briarley were splendid; Kohn offering just the right amount of Little Rock pluck, guileless charm, self-doubt and inner conflict as she grapples with prejudice and romance. Briarley, signing exquisitely, creates a dreamy, enigmatic and mature presence as the Frenchman running away to a distant island where he finds not escape but passion and purpose. I also very much admired Joan Almedilla’s Bloody Mary, making her a complex and fully realized character. (She sang beautifully, too.)

But as OK as the production was — there were too many times that some of the featured players and ensemble pushed too hard and some of the staging was clunky — I found myself thinking about the haunting pull that the show elicits 75 years after it made its world premiere at New Haven’s Shubert Theatre on March 7, 1949.

It also reminded me that some of the greatest Golden Age musicals were not based on many novels and certainly not many movies (and forget about television series) but rather collections of short stories, such as those that resulted in “Guys and Dolls” and “Fiddler on the Roof.” Here musical book writers could create something original of their own, picking and choosing pieces to make something fresh and new and not just duplicating the original source scene by scene.

Oscar Hammerstein II and original director Joshua Logan who co-write the script with Hammerstein made some smart and sometimes bold choices. (They also created a few staging challenges; rushed a few scenes that needed something more; and elongated scenes that needed something less.)

The bold stroke is in that opening scene — following that terrific overture set against a detailed map of the South Pacific by designer Alexander Dodge. Suddenly the two leading characters are moments away from kismet, a moment that is often in most musicals reserved for the end of the show. Before they can finish their cocktail, Nellie’s charming Emile by describing herself as “A Cockeyed Optimist” and he’s fallen head over heels and singing “Some Enchanted Evening.” She’s smitten, too.

So where do they go from there? Where’s the conflict? Ah, just wait, Oscar and Josh tease us they then lead the audience deeply into a sense of place: Of WWII servicemen stationed on a faraway island, waiting, waiting, waiting to get into the action of the war, while longing for female companionship. (“There Is Nothing Like a Dame”). We meet an entrepreneurial local (Bloody Mary) — and one sailor, Luther Billis, being quite a hustler himself. But it is Mary’s haunting song “Bali Ha’i” that’s the clincher, beguiling the audience before the seemingly perfect romance goes awry.

It’s R & H at their best and at their simplest. Unhurried and spare with swoony orchestrations.

What follows is a lot of story to tell, the secondary romantic pairing of an American Navyman and an Island girl, and important war maneuvers.

There are some dramaturgical bumps along the way and a few squirmy moments as Bloody Mary presents her virginal daughter Liat to Lt. Joseph Cable expecting a love match, followed by marriage. Within a few moments — and no dialogue between the two (Liat doesn’t know English, only “Happy Talk”) — they’re making love on Bali Ha’i. It’s a romance that is, to be polite, difficult for some modern audiences and sensibilities.

In the second act when Cable and de Becque are on a dangerous surveillance mission, there are long narrative scenes of radio dispatches from their mission site to the Navy command and back. And a convoluted subplot around Billis’ unorthodox naval maneuver is suddenly introduced slowing the narrative drive. Still, the ending is exquisite, and Logan’s final romantic gesture is not to be topped, and wisely retained.

Leaving the theater — and for many days — the ear worm songs remain, not simply because they’re catchy but because they are so right, so evocative of story, place and the characters’ fulsome emotions. “This Nearly Was Mine” is as beautiful a song and lyrics could be, both tender and large. The “Twin Soliloquies” from that very first scene, is a bravura merger of nervous inner thoughts and sublime melody. And the anti-racist “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” can still create (sadly relevant) chills, 75 years later.

But for me, it’s the refrain of “Bali Ha’i” that I still sing in my head, that mystical lure, that siren song of promise that beckons us to the little island of our imagination — and to the musical theater, too.

To learn more about the story of the musical, check out Laurence Maslon’s terrific coffee table book, “The South Pacific Companion.”