![]() The show has enjoyed many successful revivals and tours, spawning a 1958 film and television adaptations. Its original cast album was the bestselling record of the 1940s, and other recordings of the show have also been popular. The production won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Libretto, and it is the only musical production to win Tony Awards in all four acting categories. ![]() Several of its songs, including " Bali Ha'i", " I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair", " Some Enchanted Evening", " There Is Nothing Like a Dame", " Happy Talk", " Younger Than Springtime", and " I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy", have become popular standards. Especially in the Southern U.S., its racial theme provoked controversy, for which its authors were unapologetic. The piece won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950. After they signed Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin as the leads, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote several of the songs with the particular talents of their stars in mind. The original Broadway production enjoyed immense critical and box-office success, became the second-longest running Broadway musical to that point (behind Rodgers and Hammerstein's earlier Oklahoma! (1943)), and has remained popular ever since. Because he lacked military knowledge, Hammerstein had difficulty writing that part of the script the director of the original production, Logan, assisted him and received credit as co-writer of the book. Supporting characters, including a comic petty officer and the Tonkinese girl's mother, help to tie the stories together. The issue of racial prejudice is candidly explored throughout the musical, most controversially in the lieutenant's song, " You've Got to Be Carefully Taught". Marine lieutenant and a young Tonkinese woman, explores his fears of the social consequences should he marry his Asian sweetheart. The plot centers on an American nurse stationed on a South Pacific island during World War II, who falls in love with a middle-aged expatriate French plantation owner but struggles to accept his mixed-race children. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed they could write a musical based on Michener's work that would be financially successful and, at the same time, send a strong progressive message on racism. Michener's Pulitzer Prize–winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific and combines elements of several of those stories. The work premiered in 1949 on Broadway and was an immediate hit, running for 1,925 performances. South Pacific is a musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. Stage manager: Samantha Swaim.2008 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical Directed and choreographed by Kysa Cohen. ![]() Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.Ī Huntington Beach Playhouse production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical, with book by James Michener, adapted from his “Tales of the South Pacific.” Produced by Lorraine & Jim Krasinski. * “South Pacific,” Huntington Beach Playhouse, 7111 Talbert Ave., Huntington Beach. Linda Garen Smith’s cumbersome set gets in the way of the production most of the time, but even that can’t take away the sheer gusto of the show, which is this revival’s saving grace, and most evident in the rousing performances of the Seabees and sailors, the real stars this time around. Another highlight is Rovin Dickenson’s performance as the Seabees’ biggest wheeler-dealer, Luther Billis, with a voice as large as his comic flair. He has the smooth veneer in dialogue and song of a world-weary Frenchman who has been away from home for 20 years, and his big, rich voice suits “Some Enchanted Evening” and “This Nearly Was Mine” to a tee. Jim Sandy, on the other hand, is perfect for the role of De Becque. In spite of working in ludicrous brown-face, Canedy at least has found the ebullient humor in Bloody Mary’s larcenous dealings and given her enough depth and warmth to make her character valid, and she sings both “Bali Ha’i” and “Happy Talk” with charm and a twinkling eye. The third odd casting is Evelyn Canedy as Bloody Mary. His love ballad might aptly be retitled “Younger Than Autumntime.” He sings beautifully, but he’s not a kid fresh out of college, and his mature treatment of Cable’s realization of the causes of prejudice, “You’ve Got to Be Taught,” is more adult anger than a young man’s reaction to the emptiness in his background.
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