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"South Pacific" tackles love and war

By Misha Berson
Seattle Times theater critic

Taryn Darr, bottom, plays Ensign Nellie Forbush, and Eric Polani Jensen plays French plantation-owner suitor Emile de Becque in the Village Theatre production of "South Pacific."

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The 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein show "South Pacific" is one of the finest American story-musicals in the Broadway canon, a superb mingling of pathos, romance, comedy and World War II saga — with a batch of irresistible songs.

And yet, this eventful tale of love and war on a string of idyllic Polynesian islands remains one of the harder R&H hits to revive with full satisfaction.

The last major professional staging of the musical, in the Seattle area, was a dismal effort at the 5th Avenue Theatre a decade ago.

Now Village Theatre is taking its first crack at "South Pacific" since 1983, and the Issaquah company is getting a few things very right.

At the top of the list: the committed, rewarding performances by Taryn Darr as perky Navy nurse Ensign Nellie Forbush and Eric Polani Jensen as Nellie's French plantation-owner suitor Emile de Becque. Both actors fill these roles to the brim — with Darr charming the coconuts off the palm trees singing "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy," and Jensen radiating élan and soulfulness as he declares his ardor in "Some Enchanted Evening."

Director and choreographer Steve Tomkins' production also looks spiffy (good sets by Robert Dahlstrom, lighting by Marcus Doshi and costumes by Jeanette DeJong). It dances with gusto. And it sports able-bodied and able-voiced choruses of comely Navy nurses and brawny Seabees.

Theater review "South Pacific," through Oct. 24, Village Theatre, 303 Front St. N., Issaquah; $32-$45 (425-392-2202). Also plays Oct. 29-Nov. 14, Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave., Everett; $26-$42 (425-257-8600; information: www.villagetheatre.org).

And yet, alas, this "South Pacific" disappoints in a crucial (though maybe redeemable?) respect: the handling of the lush and dramatic Rodgers and Hammerstein score.

Under the baton of frequent Village musical director R.J. Tancioco, the pit orchestra often sounds thin, choppy and bass-heavy. The tempo is frequently too blunt and rushed, even in the ballads. And there's little of the languor, the mystery, the sensuousness that can make such ballads as "Bali Ha'i" and "This Nearly Was Mine" so dreamy.

The problem extends to some of the singers. Attractive, gifted David Jon Wilson is a logical choice to play Lt. Joe Cable (the Marine who falls for a nubile island girl). But he's strapped with warbling "Younger Than Springtime" in a key that strains beyond his robust, natural baritone range.

And though she acts the part of the Mother Courage-like peddler Bloody Mary agreeably, Leilani Wollam doesn't have the operatic pipes to make "Bali Ha'i" soar.

The musical missteps and Tomkins' overly brisk pacing in general are critical here because the show's wonderful score keys right into the many themes to be mined from "South Pacific," if you seek them.

Based on stories from James Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific," Hammerstein's book (co-written by Joshua Logan) and lyrics ripple with the frictions of this island paradise/military base. There are tensions between different cultures and races, between the sexes, between military grunts and officers, and between the internationalism many young Americans first encountered during service in World War II versus the home-grown xenophobia of their stateside hometowns.

Remember that Hammerstein's astute observation that racial bigotry is a learned response, rather than a natural one (in the song "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught"), was once controversial. In fact, some Georgia legislators protested the song and the show's interracial coupling after a "South Pacific" run in Atlanta, calling them "very offensive. ... In the South we have pure bloodlines and we intend to keep it that way."

While it was conceived (and scored big) as mainstream, popular entertainment, you also can hear the sense of a wartime peril in "South Pacific" in some of Rodgers' brooding melodies, and even in the stubbornly sunny optimism of Nellie's "A Cockeyed Optimist."

And you can pick up another sort of tension, when Jensen's skeptical Emile asks military commander Capt. Brackett (Hugh Hastings) what the U.S. really stands for, and what kind of world it wants when the war ends.

One can hope that the good things in Village's production (including a bawdy, cross-dressing romp through the gag tune "Honey Bun," with Bob Borwick's eager-beaver Luther Billis in grass skirts and coconut bra) will persist, while its musical faults are addressed. Otherwise, it's a missed chance to give "South Pacific" its due.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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