Bartlett Sher's "South Pacific" a hit on Broadway

Theater Review |

NEW YORK CITY — In 1949, the most sought-after ticket on Broadway was for an unabashedly romantic, exuberant, risk-taking musical based on the experience of Navy men and women on a remote island during World War II.

Funny, then, that this spring the same musical — "South Pacific," in its first New York revival since that 1949 debut run — is again Broadway's hottest show.

From the moment the orchestra launches into the voluptuous overture at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre, the audience seems to exhale a communal sigh of gratitude for this Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. And as the study of disparate people tossed together in wartime sails along, the enjoyment of Bartlett Sher's exhilarating production just deepens.

"South Pacific" is not unfamiliar material. Locally, in just the past decade, we've seen it produced by the Village Theatre and Civic Light Opera; "South Pacific" toured to the Paramount Theatre (headlined by Robert Goulet); and a 2006 televised concert version, starring Reba McEntire, remains a pledge-week mainstay on many PBS stations.

But whatever merits those mountings had, the Lincoln Center revival is the gold standard because it fulfills the show's every requirement in ways smaller-scaled and less ambitious versions have not.

What's not to love? This "South Pacific" boasts perfect casting, scrupulous musicianship, and enchanting visuals. And the production provides us with yet more evidence that Sher, the artistic head of Seattle's Intiman Theatre, is among the best directors working on Broadway today.

Sher has chosen his Big Apple projects wisely — the Intiman-nurtured premiere of the musical "Light in the Piazza," the Clifford Odets drama "Awake and Sing!."

And with "South Pacific," Sher has tremendous raw material to explore — particularly the glorious music of Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.

Songs that are now standards are woven throughout the plot, which is inspired by James A. Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific," based on the writer's own WWII service.

As the "little hick" Navy nurse Nellie Forbush, the terrific Kelli O'Hara (previously the lead in "Piazza") delights us with such high-spirited odes as "A Wonderful Guy" and "Honey Bun." As the amorous French planter who woos Nellie, opera dreamboat Paolo Szot pours his warm basso into a rapturous "Some Enchanted Evening," and a heartbroken "This Nearly Was Mine."

Matthew Morrison veers a long way from his role as a teen rocker hottie in the original "Hairspray" to croon "Younger Than Springtime" to Li Jun Li's dewy Polynesian girl, Liat.

Morrison's battle-hardened Lt. Joe Cable is strikingly moodier than usual, and his delivery of "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" has a blunt force. The song, about how racial bigotry is not a natural phenomenon but a learned behavior, was considered so controversial that the show's creators were urged to drop it from the score.

But they prevailed. And now it's one of the markers that make "South Pacific" not just a grand popular entertainment, but a knowing study of Americans abroad at their best and bravest, and their xenophobic worst.

Updated, this "South Pacific" is like a cherished tinted photograph that has been lovingly refreshed, restored and sharpened.

One gets the usual landscape of palm trees and pastel sunsets in the design of Michael Yeargan (sets) and Donald Holder (lights), with the exotic island Bali Ha'i peeking through the mist. But also visible is a remarkably long and lonely beach, where you can spot people walking, watching, brooding in the distance.

The throng of love-starved male Seabees singing "There Is Nothing Like a Dame" includes African-American sailors, who are placed apart from their white comrades in the ensemble scenes.

And one sees in all the major performances both joy and ambivalence — particular O'Hara's Nellie, as she wrestles internally with her revulsion over Emil's mixed-race children.

In 1949, such concerns were not often aired on a Broadway stage — or any American stage. The overwhelming response to this new "South Pacific" revival is at least in part nostalgia for Broadway musicals of the past. But it's also a reminder of how far we've come as a nation, and how much we are still struggling with matters of race and war.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com