Optimist Awash in the Tropics
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. (Yes, the second act remains weaker than the first, but Mr. Sher almost makes you forget that.) All of the supporting performances, including those of the ensemble, feel precisely individualized, right down to how they wear Catherine Zuber’s carefully researched period costumes.
Notice, by the way, how Mr. Sher implicitly underscores the theme of racism by quietly having the few African-American sailors in the company keep apart from the others. And the production never strains to evoke parallels between the then and now of the United States at war in an alien land.
Above all, though, what impresses about this “South Pacific” is how deeply, fallibly and poignantly human every character seems. Nearly 60 years ago Brooks Atkinson, writing in The New York Times, described the show as “a tenderly beautiful idyll of genuine people inexplicably tossed together in a strange corner of the world.”
I think a lot of us had forgotten that’s what “South Pacific” is really about. In making the past feel unconditionally present, this production restores a glorious gallery of genuine people who were only waiting to be resurrected.
RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN’S SOUTH PACIFIC
Music by Richard Rodgers; lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; book by Mr. Hammerstein and Joshua Logan, adapted from “Tales of the South Pacific” by James A. Michener; directed by Bartlett Sher; musical staging by Christopher Gattelli; music director, Ted Sperling; sets by Michael Yeargan; costumes by Catherine Zuber; lighting by Donald Holder; sound by Scott Lehrer; orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett; dance and incidental music arrangements by Trude Rittmann; production stage manager, Michael Brunner; associate producer, Ira Weitzman; general manager, Adam Siegel; production manager, Jeff Hamlin. Presented by Lincoln Center Theater under the direction of André Bishop and Bernard Gersten in association with Bob Boyett. At the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center; (212) 239-6200. Through June 22. Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes.
WITH: Kelli O’Hara (Ensign Nellie Forbush), Paulo Szot (Emile de Becque), Matthew Morrison (Lt. Joseph Cable), Danny Burstein (Luther Billis), Loretta Ables Sayre (Bloody Mary), Sean Cullen (Cmdr. William Harbison), Victor Hawks (Stewpot), Luka Kain (Jerome), Li Jun Li (Liat), Laurissa Romain (Ngana), Skipp Sudduth (Capt. George Brackett) and Noah Weisberg (Professor).
